KETCHES 


i£x  ICtbrtH 


SEYMOUR   DURST 


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IKE    SWIFT 


SKETCHES 
of  GOTHAM 


BY 

IKE  SWIFT 


A  collection  of 
unusual  stories 
told  in  an  un- 
usual   way     . 


PUBLISHED        BY 


RICHARD     K.     FOX,    New    York 


PS 
?537 

SSA 


Copyright   1906 

by 

Richard  K.  Fox. 


INDEX  TO  ILLUSTRATIONS 


"Ike     Swift" 2 

A  spectacular  dance  which  helped  her  in  meeting  people 12 

Her  swell  figure  made  her  an  attraction  on  the  beach 18 

She  was  once  the  real   thing  on  physical   culture 28 

A  dose  of  knockout  drops  proved  the  turning  point  in  her  life.  38 

A  wonderful  but  untrue  picture  of  love  behind  the  scenes.  ...  50 
She  has  been  known  to  kick  the  crown  of  a  hat  held  six  feet 

from    the   floor 60 

Rackets  where  pretty   girls   cut   capers    to   the   music   of   male 

voices 68 

He   often    made   an    honest    dollar    teaching   American   women 

how   to    smoke    "hop'* 78 

There    was    disclosed    the    figure    of    a    young    woman    rather 

scantily    clad    90 

She  had  such  a  superb  figure  that  she  once  posed  for  a  sculptor.  100 
Disguised  as  a  sailor  bov   she  shipped  on  one  of  Uncle    Sam's 

ships     1 08 

For  three  solid  hours  he  sat  there  trussed  up  like  a  chicken.  ..  118 

She  put  herself  up  at  auction  and  was  promptly  bid  on 128 

She  went  Into  the  smoking  car  and  calmly  lighted  a  cigarette.  .  136 
She    had    one    or    two   fights    on    her    hands,    but    she    always 

won   out    146 

She  had  danced  the  fandango  in  a  way  that  made  the  Mexicans 

cheer     156 

Atlantic  City  is  the  place  for  sporty  girls  who  play  the  game 

to    the    limit 164 

They  had  a  hot  time  in  Minneapolis  when  the  show  hit  town.  .  174 
"I  wasn't  arrested,  but  I  was  put  out  as  if  I  were  a  common 

swindler"     184 

There  were  times  when  she  did  things  that  were  uncon- 
ventional       192 

A  light  flashed  out  on  the  landing  and  revealed  the  figure  of 

a   beautiful    woman 202 

Put   her    in    tights    and    she    would    have    been    an    Oriental 

sensation     212 

The    first    pair    are    in    the    ring,    the    talk    ceases,    and    the 

show   is   on 220 

The  glitter  of  a  circus  became  too  much  for  them  to  resist.  . .  .  230 
Wild   revelry   of   the  masked  ball   and   the   perfect   ladies    with 

the   hot   sports 240 

It's  only  a  dream  after  the  lobster  course 250 

She  figured  once  at  a  masked  ball  that  was  raided  by  the  police.  260 
Once    she   had   been   on    the   stage,   but   she   got    a    rough    deal 

and   quit    268 

When  the  clock  struck  two  she  was  on  the  table  doing  a  dance.  278 


CONTENTS 


A  Little  Easy  Money 7 

Casting  an  Old  Shoe 19 

The  Long  Way  'Round 27 

The  Queen  of  Chinatown 39 

A  Girl  of  the  Golden  Gate 47 

When  Fists  Were  Trumps 57 

Kid  and  His  Ten  Thousand 69 

An  Oriental  Nocturne 79 

A  Com mercial  Transaction S9 

The  End  of  the  Road 99 

The  Throwback : 109 

From  the  Woods  to  Broadway 117 

The  Whims  of  Curves 127 

Cheyenne  Nell;  Trimmer 137 

Tragedy  of  a  Dance 147 

The  Monologue  Girl's  Story 157 

A  Twisted  Love  Affair 163 

Wedding  Rings  and  Footlights 173 

Told  by  the  Manicure  Girl 183 

Investing  in  a  Husband 193 

Training  an  Old  Sport 201 

Concerning  a  Syrian  Beauty 211 

The  Rejuvenation  of  Patsy 221 

A  Case  of  Knockout  Drops 231 

Discovering  a  Prima  Donna 241 

A  Throw  of  the  Dice 249 

A  Voice  in  the  Slums. 259 

A  Girl  of  the  Night 269 

After  the  Wedding  Bells 279 


A  LITTLE  EASY  MONEY 

A  great  many  years  ago,  when  Tom  Byrnes  was  the 
able  and  efficient  chief  of  the  detective  force  of  New 
York,  a  certain  class  of  women,  very  much  in  evidence 
around  the  hotels  and  resorts,  were  known,  from  the 
peculiar  manner  of  their  work,  as  Badger  Molls. 

There  was  one  in  particular  who  had  added  a  spec- 
tacular dance  to  her  many  other  accomplishments  and 
which  helped  her  not  a  little  in  meeting  the  right  kind 
of  people. 

To  be  a  Badger  Moll  a  woman  had  to  have  nerve, 
assurance,  a  fair  amount  of  good  looks,  be  able  to  read 
character  and  keep  her  wits  about  her  at  all  times. 
There  were  occasions  when  she  was  up  against  it  so 
good  and  strong  that  it  didn't  seem  as  if  there  was 
one  chance  in  a  hundred  for  her  to  do  her  part  of  the 
trick,  but  in  ninety  times  out  of  a  hundred  she  landed 
the  bundle  of  the  victim. 

That  is  to  say,  of  course,  with  the  aid  of  her  confed- 
erate. 

The  old  days  of  the  Moll  have  gone  by,  but  the  new 
days  have  come  and  they  are  here  now.  The  new 
representative  is  of  a  higher  class,  of  a  superior  edu- 
cation, is  more  adept,  and,  as  a  rule,  gets  more  money. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  during  the  past  ten  years 
only  two  big  jobs  have  fallen  through — that  is,  so  far 
as  is  known — and  these  things  usually  become  known 
when  they  are  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  police. 


8  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

A  handsomely  gowned  woman,  with  a  bearing  that 
would  deceive  almost  anyone,  comes  down  the  line. 
She  looks  like  my  lady  from  Fifth  avenue,  but  if  you 
will  notice  her  eyes  you  will  see  in  them  the  look  of  a 
huntress. 

She  is  on  the  trail  of  men,  and  it  is  a  rare  thing  for 
her  to  make  a  mistake.  Mistakes  in  her  business,  you 
know,  sometimes  spell  Sing  Sing,  as  a  lady  by  the 
name  of  Moore  will  tell  you  if  you  ever  meet  her  and 
she  should  become  confidential. 

As  she  passes  the  hotels  you  will  notice  this  particu- 
lar woman  hesitates  in  her  stride,  she  goes  into  the  low 
gear  and  she  looks  questioningly  at  the  men  who  are 
standing  about. 

It  is  the  glance  of  an  expert,  but  it  is  cleverly  veiled. 

Even  though  you  and  I  know  her  and  know  what 
her  business  is,  we  are  attracted  by  her  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, just  as  people  are  attracted  by  a  magnificent 
tigress  or  leopard  in  the  menagerie.  They  have  fangs 
and  claws,  but  they  are  hidden,  and  being  concealed 
are  forgotten  for  the  time. 

This  is  a  human  tigress,  but  she  is  not  on  the  scent 
of  blood,  she's  trailing  bank  rolls. 

There  is,  however,  nothing  unusual  in  that,  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it,  because  that  is  what  four-fifths 
of  the  world  is  doing,  and  the  other  fifth  is  being 
chased  and  knows  it. 

The  tigress  throws  in  her  high  speed  and  passes  on 
until  she  has  reached  the  entrance  to  another  hotel, 
and  here  the  scent  of  prey  comes  strongly  to  her  nos- 
trils. 

A  fine-looking  man  of  about  fifty  years  is  leaning 
carelessly  against  one  of  the  marble  columns.    He  has 


A    LITTLE    EASY    MONEY  9 

dined  well,  anyone  can  see  that,  and  he  is  half  way  into 
his  after-dinner  cigar.  He  is  in  the  ripe  stage ;  the 
time  to  ask  a  favor,  or  to  have  a  courtesy  extended. 
He  is  at  peace  with  himself  and  everybody  else,  and  as 
the  tigress  passes  by  he  gets  a  flash  of  those  black  eyes 
which  tell  him  a  story  that  while  it  is  not  new,  is  al-» 
ways  interesting,  especially  under  these  circumstances, 
when  he  is  a  thousand  miles  from  home. 

There  are  few  men,  anyhow,  who  can  stand  tempta- 
tion when  they  are  strangers  in  a  strange  city.  Man  is 
a  companionable  sort  of  a  proposition  and  to  be  at  his 
best  must  have  society. 

This  one,  who  is  perhaps  the  father  of  an  interesting 
family,  and  who  is  above  reproach  in  his  native  city, 
and  who  would  become  indignant  at  the  thought  of  a 
street  flirtation,  involuntarily  straightens  himself  up, 
and  taking  a  firmer  hold  of  his  cigar,  glances  after  the 
slowly  retreating  figure  of  the  lady  with  the  black 
eyes. 

It's  a  trim  shape,  by  Jove ;  and  look  at  that  ankle. 

A  peach. 

"Nothing  common  about  her,"  he  soliloquizes.  "Just 
a  nice  girl,  perhaps,  who  is  a  bit  lonely,  too." 

And  then,  at  that  particular  moment,  the  "nice  girl," 
who  has  been  sauntering  very  slowly,  turns  around  and 
looking  directly  at  him,  smiles. 

A  woman's  smile. 

Cast  off  your  lines,  my  boy,  and  on  your  way,  for  the 
magnetism  of  that  smile  has  you  lashed  to  the  mast, 
but  you  don't  know  it  yet.  What  you  have  in  your 
mind  is  that  you'll  just  take  a  little  walk  and  have  a 
little  talk,  just  to  fill  in  a  few  lonely  hours,  you  know. 


10  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

So  he  leaves  the  mooring  of  his  hotel  and  trails  the 
trailer. 

One  short  block  he  walks,  and  then  just  as  he  is 
about  to  come  abreast  of  her  she  turns  about  and  meets 
him  with  the  same  smile  that  has  been  doing  duty 
for  the  past  five  years. 

She  knew,  he  had  reached  that  particular  spot  by  that 
woman's  intuition,  keyed  up  so  fine  as  to  be  on  feather 
edge  all  the  time. 

Her  little  bow  is  modest — even  coy.  It  is  like  the 
bow  of  a  school  girl  who  is  afraid  she  is  not  doing 
quite  the  right  thing,  but  who  is  just  a  trifle  reckless, 
and  is  willing  to  take  a  chance  or  two  Just  for  a  lark. 

"How  do  you  do  ?"  she  asks. 

"Great ;  how  are  you ;  fine  night ;  where  are  you 
going?"  he  rattles  off,  trying  to  appear  at  ease,  and  be 
the  real  fellow. 

"I  was  just  taking  a  walk.  You  see,  it  was  so  quiet 
in  the  house,  and  I  sat  there  all  alone  until  I  just 
thought  I  would  die,  so  I  came  out  to  get  a  little  fresh 
air  and  see  if  I  couldn't  walk  myself  tired  before  bed 
time." 

That  accounts  for  her  being  out,  of  course,  and  it  is 
very  nicely  delivered,  too ;  besides,  it  gives  the  man  a 
chance  to  say  something,  and  he  is  prompt  to  say  it. 

"All  alone?  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  live 
all  alone?" 

Oh,  no;  she  doesn't  live  all  alone  all  the  time.  But 
Jack — that's  her  husband,  you  know — he  is  on  the 
road: — commercial  man,  you  see,  the  best  and  dearest 
fellow  in  all  the  world,  and  it's  such  a  horrid  position 
he  has,  too,  always  traveling.  He  went  away  just  a 
month  ago  on  his  Western  trip,  to  be  gone  two  months, 


A    LITTLE    EASY    MONEY  n 

think  of  it;  almost  an  age.  He's  with  the  big  dry 
goods  house  of  Wools  &  Muslins,  the  biggest  in  New 
York.  But  next  year  Jack  is  going  to  have  an  office 
position  and  then  everything  will  be  all  right. 

"After  that,"  she  goes  on,  "Jack  and  the  baby  and  I 
will  be  quite  happy." 

"The  baby?    Have  you  a  baby?" 

"Why,  of  course." 

"And  you  say  you  are  lonely?  I  should  think  that 
the  baby  would " 

"Yes,  of  course,  so  it  would,  but  don't  you  see,  Jack's 
mother,  who  lives  with  us,  went  to  visit  some  friends 
in  the  country — Montclair,  do  you  know  where  that  is  ? 
— and  she  thought  it  would  do  the  little  fellow  good 
and  she  took  him  along,  and  now  I  am  so  sorry  I  let 
him  go." 

Isn't  it  too  beautiful  for  anything,  and  isn't  she  an 
artist  of  whom  Jack  ought  to  be  very  proud? 

"Well,  I  am  a  little  lonely  myself,"  says  the  business 
man  from  Dayton,  O.,  "and  I  think  you  and  I  ought  to 
cheer  one  another  up.  What  do  you  think  about  that 
proposition  ?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  It's  very  nice  to  have  you  talk 
to  me,  but  I  feel  a  little  bit  frightened  about  it  all.  You 
know  I  never  spoke  to  a  strange  man  on  the  street  be- 
fore like  this,  and  I  am  sure  that  Jack  wouldn't  like  it 
if " 

"Yes,  but  Jack  isn't  here  now.  Who  knows  what  he 
is  doing?  You  know  these  traveling  men  when  they 
get  away  from  home  and  home  ties  have  been  known 

"Yes,  but  not  my  Jack.  You  don't  know  him.  He 
would  never  do  anything  wrong,  for  he  told  me  so." 


A  spectacular  dance  which  helped  her  injmeeting  people 


A    LITTLE    EASY    MONEY  13 

And  now  they  have  walked  four  blocks. 

There  is  a  hack  driver  and  his  wagon  at  the  corner. 

"Cab,  sir;  have  a  cab?" 

He's  on,  and  immediately  takes  the  tip  offered  him. 

"Suppose  we  take  a  little  drive  through  the  Park," 
suggests  the  man. 

"I  don't  think  it  would  be  quite  right.    I  would  like 

to,  but ■    Oh,  if  we  were  only  real  well  acquainted, 

I  would  like  to,  but  you  see " 

The  end  of  it  is  that  the  cab  drive  is  vetoed,  and  he 
begins  to  think  as  to  how  he  can  best  entertain  her  in 
some  other  way.  He  takes  a  hasty  sidelong  glance  at 
her,  and  his  heart  increases  about  ten  beats  to  the  min- 
ute. She's  all  right,  you  bet.  Why,  he  wouldn't  mind 
staying  in  New  York  another  week  ff 

"Let's  go  somewhere  and  have-  a  nice  bottle  of 
wine,"  he  says. 

"I  hope  you  don't  mean  to  offend  me,  but  you 
shouldn't  ask  me  anything  like  that.  I  think  I  am  do- 
ing very  wrong  in  even  talking  to  you,  but  I  can't  help 
it.  There  was  something  about  you  when  I  passed  by 
that  seemed  to  attract  me.  I  have  done  something  to- 
night that  I  have  never  been  guilty  of  before,  and 
never  will  be  again.  I  don't  object  to  wine,  because  we 
have  it  in  the  house,  but  I  didn't  think  you  would  ask 
me  to  go  to  a  common  saloon  with  you — a  place  I  have 
never  been  in  in  my  life.  But  I  suppose  I  deserve  it 
for  speaking  to  you  trie  way  I  did,  and  for  walking 
with  you  the  way  I  am  now." 

He  protests,  he  apologizes,  and  he  feels  that  he  has 
made  a  great  mistake.  He  is  humiliated  beyond  ex- 
pression. Here  is  a  nice  little  woman  with  a  husband 
and  a  baby,  who  has  permitted  him  to  accost  her  on 


14  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

the  street,  probably  because  she  felt  that  she  needed 
some  human  companionship,  and  he  has  insulted  hei 
by  asking  her  to  go  to  a  public  place  and  drink  a  bottle 
of  wine  with  him,  just  as  if  she  were  a  woman  of  the 
streets.  He  feels  that  he  cannot  do  enough  to  make 
amends  to  her. 

"I  don't  believe,"  she  says,  sweetly,  "that  you  in- 
tended to  hurt  my  feelings  for  a  moment.  Let  you  and 
I  be  simply  good  friends.  We  are  both  a  little  lone- 
some ;  let  us  spend  a  pleasant  evening  together,  for  it 
isn't  likely  that  we  will  ever  meet  again  after  to-night. 
We  will  act  as  if  we  were  brother  and  sister ;  but  if  you 
would  really  like  a  bottle  of  wine  I  have  a  lot  home 
that  Jack  says  is  pretty  good,  and  we  can  go  there  and 
be  all  by  ourselves." 

But  a  moment  later  she  repents  and  says  it  will  not 
do  at  all,  for  suppose  any  of  the  neighbors  should  see 
them  going  in,  what  then? 

He  clutches  at  the  idea  like  a  drowning  man  clutches 
at  a  straw,  for  this  is  a  wonderfully  nice  girl  he  has 
met  in  this  accidental  way,  and  he  would  like  to  be- 
come better  acquainted. 

So  he  begins  to  coax,  and  she  laughingly  refuses  to 
listen.  He  pleads,  argues  and  promises,  and  then  he 
stops  in  a  shop  and  blows  himself  to  a  five-pound  box 
of  candy  for  the  baby — and  her. 

When  he  peels  the  bill  off  a  roll  that  would  choke  an 
elephant  she  sizes  it  all  up  out  of  the  tail  of  her  eye, 
and  makes  a  mental  calculation  as  to  how  much  is 
there. 

She's  just  a  trifle  more  endearing  to  him  after  that, 
and  it  strikes  him  that  she  is  getting  a  little  reckless. 


A    LITTLE    EASY    MONEY  15 

"Come  on,"  she  says,  quite  gayly,  and  with  an  affec- 
tation of  sportiness,  "I  will  take  you  up  to  the  house, 
but  you  must  promise  me  on  your  word  of  honor  that 
you  won't  remember  the  street  or  the  number  and  that 
you'll  never  try  to  see  me  again.  Remember,  this  is 
just  for  one  evening,  and  I  don't  want  you  to  think  I 
am  anything  but  what  I  seem." 

"I  could  never  think  that,"  he  says,  quite  soberly. 

"What  must  you  think  of  a  girl  who  will  permit  a 
stranger  to  speak  to  her  on  the  street?" 

"I  should  think  that  in  your  case  she  would  be  very 
nice." 

She  is  laughing  and  chatting  just  like  a  girl  out  of 
school,  and  she  has  interested  him  so  much  that  he 
hasn't  noticed  that  they  were  getting  into  quieter  and 
darker  streets,  until  she  suddenly  turns  into  a  hallway 
which  is  just  like  a  thousand  other  New  York  hall- 
ways, and  announces: 

"Here  we  are  at  last ;  now  don't  make  any  noise." 

Up  one  flight,  and  she's  fumbling  for  a  key,  which 
she  finds  in  a  moment,  and  then  the  door  is  opened. 

The  lights  are  turned  low,  and  for  some  reason  or 
other  she  doesn't  turn  them  up,  which  he  notes  with  a 
certain  feeling  of  pleasure. 

"Now  take  off  your  hat  and  coat,  and  we  will  have 
that  bottle  of  wine  I  told  you  about,  for  I  am  going  to 
let  you  stay  just  one  hour,  after  which  I  am  going  to 
try  and  forgive  myself  for  having  spoken  to  you." 

It  is  all  very  nice  and  charming,  and  the  wine  is  very 
good — a  bit  better,  in  fact,  than  He  had  any  idea  it 
would  be. 

When  the  bottle  and  the  glasses  are  empty  he  finds 
himself  sitting  beside  her  on   a  divan.     His  arm  is 


1 6  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

about  her  waist  and  she  is  struggling  to  free  herself. 
He  leans  over  to  kiss  her,  but  she  deftly  turns  her  face 
away. 

"You  must  not  try  to  kiss  me,"  she  whispers,  but  as 
she  speaks  she  throws  her  arms  about  his  neck. 

It  seems  to  the  staid  old  business  bulwark  from  the 
West  as  if  he  had  been  sitting  there  for  hours,  when 
suddenly  the  electric  bell  rings. 

Both  jump  to  their  feet. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asks  in  a  low  voice. 

"I  don't  know ;  I  can't  think,"  she  answers,  holding 
her  hand  to  her  head.  "Perhaps  it's  Jack.  My  God,,, 
if  it  should  be  Jack.  He  will  kill  you  if  he  finds  you 
here.  I  could  never  explain  it.  Take  your  hat  and 
coat  quick.  Here,  this  way,  the  back  door,  and  run, 
run  as  fast  as  you  can.  Don't  stop,  please,  until  you 
get  to  your  hotel.     Go,  go,  at  once." 

With  hat  and  coat  in  hand  he  finds  himself  pushed 
out  in  a  dark  passageway.  He  gropes  his  way  to  the 
stairs. 

A  man  is  coming  up,  a  man  with  a  traveling  case. 

It's  Jack,  as  sure  as  you  live. 

Guiltily  he  walks  down,  steps  hurriedly  to  the  street 
door,  passes  out,  and  starts  on  a  brisk  trot  up  the  street. 
At  the  first  corner  he  turns,  then  he  turns  another 
block,  then  he  turns  again,  with  the  instinct  of  a  hunted 
hare.  So  he  pursued  his  zig-zag  course  for  many 
blocks,  until  he  finally  stops  to  ask  directions. 

"The  Gilt-Edge  Hotel?  certainly;  four  blocks  over 
to  the  avenue  then  about  twenty  down." 

He  walks  the  four  blocks  while  he  catches  his 
breath,  and  then  he  gets  aboard  a  car  only  to  find  he 
hasn't  a  cent. 


A    LITTLE    EASY    MONEY 


17 


Worse ;  he  hasn't  a  watch,  nor  a  scarf  pin. 

He  must  have  lost  them  while  he  was  running. 

He  gets  off  and  stands  on  the  corner  to  think  it  over. 

Eleven  hundred  dollars  in  good  money  gone ;  a 
watch  worth  $350  and  a  pin  worth  at  least  $150. 

The  faint  odor  of  violets  comes  back  to  him,  and 
then  he  comes  to  his  senses. 

Stung. 

"It  took  you  a  long  while  to  ring  that  bell,  Billy, 
after  I  gave  you  the  tip.  Don't  wait  so  long  next  time. 
You  must  be  getting  old,  for  you're  working  very  slow 
lately." 

"I  didn't  hear  the  buzzer  at  first ;  I  don't  think  you 
pressed  it  hard  enough.  I'll  give  it  a  look  to-morrow 
and  see.  But  I  would  never  have  sized  that  old  guy  up 
for  eleven  hundred." 

"You  never  can  tell  what  they've  got  until  you  take 
it  awav  from  them.,, 


Her  swell  figure  made  her  an  attraction  on  the  beach 


CASTING  AN   OLD  SHOE 

It  may  be  that  you — whoever  you  are  or  wherever 
you  are — don't  know  what  it  means  to  go  "down  the 
line."  But  in  New  York — in  order  that  we  may  start 
right — "The  Line"  means  that  part  of  Broadway  where 
at  night  the  lights  burn  brightest,  and  where  the  mob 
— swell  and  otherwise — move  back  and  forth  like  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide — hunting,  hunting,  ever  on 
the  hunt. 

From  Twenty-third  street  to  Forty-second,  and  back 
again,  and  you  have  gone  down  The  Line.  Sometimes 
it  costs  you  nothing  for  this  innocent  little  amusement ; 
this  feast  of  the  eyes ;  and  then  again  it  is  liable  to  cost 
you  a  great  deal. 

It  all  depends  upon  who  you  are,  and  what  you  are 
and  how  easy  you  are. 

And  there  you  are. 

I  once  knew  a  man,  and  this  is  pat  while  I  am  on 
this  subject,  who  came  to  New  York  from  Buffalo.  He 
was  only  going  to  remain  for  a  day  or  so,  and  then  he 
was  going  to  hike  himself  back'to  his  home  by  the  big 
lake. 

He  had  sold  out  his  business,  and  when  he  landed  in 
New  York  he  had  a  bank  roll  of  twenty-one  thousand 
dollars. 

It  was  enough  to  make  any  ordinary  man  round 
shouldered,  but  he  was  a  husky  guy  who  was  used  to 


20  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

the  long  green,  and  it  didn't  bother  him  any  more  than 
if  it  had  been  beef-and-bean  money. 

He  put  up  at  a  big  swell  hotel,  and  during  the  even- 
ing, when  time  hung  a  bit  heavy  on  his  hands,  he  got 
it  into  his  head  that  he  would  take  a  walk  down  the 
line,  and  then  turn  in  among  the  feathers. 

With  a  perfecto  between  his  teeth,  he  got  as  far  as 
Thirty-eighth  street,  where  he  met  his  finish. 

When  he  arrived  at  his  hotel  at  ten  o'clock  the  next 
morning  he  asked  the  proprietor  to  loan  him  twenty 
dollars  to  get  home. 

No  explanations  go  with  this,  because  he  was  sport 
enough  never  to  tell  how  it  happened.  It  doesn't  even 
point  a  moral,  for  there  are  no  morals  on  the  line. 

Going  down  the  street,  like  a  yacht  under  full  sail,  is 
a  woman  whom  it  cost  not  a  cent  less  than  $750  to  put 
in  commission.  In  the  male  vernacular  she  is  what 
might  be  termed  a  peach,  and  there  is  no  need  to  trans- 
late that  for  you,  for  the  simple  reason  that  you  are 
familiar  enough  with  the  different  kinds  of  fruit  to 
know  what  that  means. 

Because  of  her  figure  and  the  fact  that  she  was  a 
good  fellow  she  was  an  attraction  at  the  beach. 

She  has  a  history,  of  course.  They  all  have,  to  a 
certain  extent,  but  this  is  somewhat  out  of  the  ordi- 
nary. 

In  her  day — and  her  day  wasn't  so  many  years  ago 
— she  was  a  noted  beauty,  and  she  had  one  of  the  most 
charming  apartments  in  New  York.  It  was  frequented 
by  what  might  be  termed  the  high-class  sporting  crowd 
— lawyers  with  national  reputations,  actors  whose 
names  were  in  big  type  on  the  billboards,  business  men 
who  posed  as  the  bulwarks  of  the  commercial  world, 


CASTING    AN    OLD    SHOE  21 

and  politicians  who  waxed  sleek  and  fat  at  the  public 
cribs.  They  played  poker  there  and  were  entertained 
royally  by  her.  She  gave  the  choicest  of  dinners  and 
served  the  best  of  wines,  and  she  was  a  perfect  hostess. 
Her  rooms  were  more  like  a  club  than  anything  else, 
and  she  was  never  annoyed  by  any  love-making  on 
the  part  of  her  guests,  for  a  very  good,  substantial  and 
simple  reason — the  man  who  paid  the  shot  and  who 
figured  as  the  real  one  in  that  charmed  and  exclusive 
circle  was  none  other  than  a  high  official  of  New 
York. 

His  hospitality,  dispensed  through  her,  was  almost 
boundless,  and  there  are  those  who  say  that  there  was 
method  in  that  gathering,  and  that  many  a  serious 
public  question  was  discussed  within  the  confines  of 
those  gorgeously  upholstered  rooms. 

Give  a  man  the  proper  seat  at  the  right  kind  of  a 
table,  beside  a  woman  who  is  beautiful,  charming  and 
magnetic,  serve  him  with  a  perfect  dinner,  with  good 
wine  selected  by  a  connoisseur,  then  after  the  dessert 
provide  him  with  a  cigar  which  cannot  be  bought  in 
the  open  market,  and  it  is  almost  a  sure  thing  that,  if 
you  have  any  proposition  to  make,  your  battle  is  half 
won.  What  an  ideal  spot  for  lawyers,  politicians  and 
capitalists  to  discuss  things  that  it  wouldn't  do  to 
have  the  public  know. 

And  as  the  months  rolled  by  this  woman  came  to  be 
known  by  the  majority  of  prominent  men  of  New 
York. 

Now  you  can  get  a  good  look  at  her  as  she  stops  to 
glance  in  that  window. 

Not  to  have  been  her  guest  was  to  have  missed  a  lot 
in  life,  and  when  you  lost  to  her  in  a  little  poker  game 


22  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

you  were  almost  sorry  your  losses  were  not  heavier. 

She  had  more  diamond  rings  than  she  could  wear  at 
any  one  time,  and  she  had  the  best  wardrobe  in  town. 
No  matter  what  she  saw  and  wanted  it  was  hers.  She 
scarcely  needed  to  ask  for  it — she  just  wished,  and  it 
came  as  though  she  had  been  blessed  with  some  fairy 
godmother  who  waved  a  magic  wand,  and  brought 
things  on  the  wind. 

So  there's  the  picture,  painted  in  the  most  ordinary 
colors,  and  there's  the  woman,  who  grew  to  think  the 
world  was  made  for  her  to  play  with  and  do  with  as 
she  liked. 

When  she  was  at  the  height  of  her  career,  this  law- 
yer-political friend  of,  hers — this  champion  and  pro- 
vider— really  and  truly  fell  in  love.  He  was  well  past 
middle  age,  but  that  made  no  difference.  After  many 
years  of  waiting — years  which  were  punctuated  with 
numerous  affairs  which  he  thought  spelled  love — he 
found  the  girl  at  last  in  the  daughter  of  a  man  whose 
position  left  him  nothing  to  wish  for.  She  was  a  so- 
ciety girl  and  charming  enough  for  any  man. 

Before  he  fully  realized  what  he  was  doing  he  had 
proposed  marriage  to  her  and  had  been  accepted  with- 
out giving  that  other  one  a  thought. 

When  he  understood  that  he  had  to  break  with  her, 
he  knew  that  he  had  the  job  of  his  life  in  front  of  him, 
but  he  was  game  enough  to  go  at  it  without  a  moment's 
hesitancy,  and  so  one  night,  after  the  crowd  had  gone 
and  the  last  poker  chip  cashed  in,  he  told  her  the 
story. 

"I  am  going  to  marry  and  settle  down,"  he  said. 
"My  position  demands  it,  and  I  cannot  go  on  living 
this  way  forever.    I  feel  that  I  have  a  political  future, 


CASTING    AN    OLD    SHOE  2$ 

and  I  must  protect  myself.  If  I  ever  came  up  again 
for  any  prominent  office,  as  I  expect  to  in  the  near 
future,  my  relations  with  you  would  mean  the  worst 
kind  of  defeat  for  me.  I  want  to  be  fair  with  you,  and 
I  am  willing  to  settle  any  claim  you  may  have  on  me 
for  anything  within  reason." 

His  story  took  a  long  while  in  the  telling,  and 
through  it  all  she  never  moved  nor  spoke. 

When  he  had  quite  finished  she  stretched  and 
yawned. 

"Is  that  all  you  have  to  say?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  "that  is  all,  except  that  I  hope 
we  will  part  friends,  and  that  if  ever  I  can  do  anything 
for  you,  I " 

"Now  whatever  you  do,"  she  spoke  up  sharply, 
"don't  get  tiresome  nor  sentimental.  You're  a  good 
fellow,  and  always  have  been — so  you  think.  I  have 
come  into  your  life  and  have  answered  your  purpose. 
I  have  entertained  your  friends  and  made  it  pleasant 
for  you  and  them.  I  suppose  you  think  I  did  it  simplv 
because  I  was  provided  for  and  had  everything  I 
wanted — that  I  was  a,  sort  of  a  high-class  servant  who 
was  satisfied  with  her  wages.  If  I  had  been  wise  I 
would  have  anticipated  this  and  been  prepared  for  it. 
I  would  have  had  enough  money  in  the  bank  to  have 
been  independent  to  a  certain  extent.  I  am  like  a 
poker  chip — you  bought  me,  played  with  me,  and  now 
you  are  ready  to  cash  me  in  because  you  have  finished 
with  me.  You  are  a  good  fellow — with  the  men — but 
you  are  very  tiresome  and  that  reminds  me  that  I  am 
tired  and  wish  you  would  run  along.  Go  home  now, 
and  dream  of  the  nice  girl  you  are  going  to  marry." 


24  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

He  stood  looking  at  her  like  a  man  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  drug.  He  did  not  know  what  to  say.  He 
had  expected  a  scene  of  some  kind,  and  he  was  disap- 
pointed. His  vanity  was  touched.  Why,  here  was  a 
woman  for  whom  he  had  done  everything  in  the  world, 
and  whom  he  thought  loved  him,  and  she  was  parting 
from  him  without  a  tear  or  even  so  much  as  a  word  of 
expostulation.  That  didn't  suit  him  at  all.  He  wanted 
her  to  throw  her  arms  about  his  neck  and  beg  him  not 
to  go.  Of  course,  he  would  have  gone  just  the  same, 
but  he  didn't  want  to  think  that  she  would  let  him  go 
so  easily. 

The  pride  and  vanity  of  man  is  a  peculiar  thing,  and 
there  are  not  ten  men  in  a  thousand  who  understand 
women,  even  though  they  think  they  do.  This  man, 
clever,  handsome  and  brilliant,  was  of  the  majority 
who  do  not  know,  and  he  had  nothing  to  say  to  the 
woman  who  had  entertained  him  and  with  whom  he 
had  spent  many  pleasant  hours. 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  moment  and  then  he  went 
out  as  though  he  had  been  whipped  from  the  door. 

She  turned  the  key  in  the  lock  and  then  gave  way  to 
her  real  feelings  by  crying  as  only  a  heart-broken 
woman  can. 

He  had  incriminated  himself  with  her  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  he  dreaded  her.  She  had  been  too  calm  to 
suit  him,  and  he  feared  trouble  to  come.  He  had  no 
definite  idea  as  to  what  form  it  might  take,  but  he 
wanted  to  avoid  it. 

So  he  went  direct  to  one  of  his  most  astute  legal 
friends — the  same  one,  who,  by  the  way,  told  me  the 
whole  story  in  a  burst  of  half-drunken  confidence — 
and  they  sat  up  half  the  night  figuring  on  how  to  head 


CASTING    AN    OLD    SHOE  25 

her  off  in  case  she  attempted  to  do  anything  that  would 
reflect  on  his  "spotless"  character.  How  careful  the 
man  is  of  his  name  as  a  rule,  and  how  despicably  he  can 
treat  a  woman  when  it  suits  either  his  mood  or  con- 
venience. 

That  midnight  conference  finally  resolved  itself  into 
definite  shape  by  the  counsellor  saying : 

'Til  take  $10,000  to  her  and  get  everything  she  has 
of  yours  and  her  signature  under  a  statement  that  will 
leave  you  free  and  clear." 

And  so  it  was  agreed. 

Lawyers  do  not  act  very  quickly  unless  their  own  in- 
terests are  at  stake.  Speed  was  required  here  and  the 
action  was  fast  enough  for  anyone.  The  next  day,  at 
noon,  the  lawyer,  who  knew  her  well  enough  to  call 
her  by  her  first  name,  called  upon  her,  and  as  he  was 
ushered  into  the  handsome  apartment  he  involuntarily 
put  his  hand  to  his  breast  pocket,  which  contained  ten 
new,  crisp  one  thousand  dollar  bills — the  price  of  her 
silence,  from  his  standpoint. 

It  is  interesting  to  be  able  to  note  that  the  interview 
was  short,  sharp,  sweet  and  to  the  point.  He  made  his  < 
eloquent  speech  of  how  his  friend,  who  had  always 
loved  her  devotedly,  was  forced  by  something  which 
she  could  not  understand  to  break  from  her  and  marry 
a  woman  whose  position  in  society  was  assured.  He 
was  prepared  to  pay  her  an  amount  of  money — quite  a 
liberal  one,  in  fact — so  that  she  should  want  for  noth- 
ing. All  he  desired  was  a  certain  package  of  letters 
and  a  statement  that  she  had  only  known  his  friend 
in  the  most  casual  way. 

"How  much  are  you  going  to  pay  me?"  she  asked. 


26  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Ten  thousand  dollars,  and  here  it  is,"  he  said,  pro- 
ducing the  bills. 

"I  will  do  what  he  wants,"  was  all  she  said,  and  in 
ten  minutes  the  job  was  done. 

Then  he  laid  the  money  on  the  table. 

"What  is  your  fee?"    She  spoke  very  softly. 

"My  fee?"  he  repeated,  as  if  he  did  not  quite  catch 
her  meaning. 

"Yes,  your  fee.  How  much  are  you  charging  this 
friend  of  yours  for  what  you  are  doing  for  him  ?" 

"I  am  doing  it  through  friendship.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  fee  in  a  case  like  this." 

"You  have  earned  this  money,  and  I  do  not  want  it," 
she  went  on.  "I  am  not  a  blackmailer  nor  can  my 
promise  of  immunity  be  bought.  I,  too,  understand 
what  the  word  friendship  means,  and  I  am  not  so  de- 
graded nor  lost  but  that  I  can  take  advantage  of  it. 
It  is  such  men  as  you  and  he  that  make  such  women  as 
I  am.    Good-day." 

He  was  in  the  hall  with  the  money  in  his  hand  be- 
fore he  quite  realized  how  it  all  happened. 

Between  you  and  me,  my  friends,  I  would  sooner 
have  her  conscience  than  the  conscience  of  the  very  fine 
gentleman  whose  public  career  has  since  been  marked 
by  repeated  triumphs. 


THE  LONG  WAY  'ROUND 

The  Girl  from  Philadelphia  wasn't  a  beauty  by  any 
means,  but  she  had  a  nice  fetching  way,  good  teeth, 
and  a  cheerful,  contagious  laugh  which  are  three 
things  that  have  beauty  left  at  the  post.  Beauty,  you 
^ee,  is  only  good  for  a  short  sprint  at  the  best,  and  in 
a  long  race  is  liable  to  lag  a  bit  toward  the  finish,  but 
the  other  propositions  are  stayers  nine  times  out  of 
ten  and  generally  manage  to  come  under  the  wire  in 
good  shape. 

Thirty  days  in  the  big  city,  if  spent  in  the  right  kind 
of  company,  usually  mean  about  a  year  in  Quaker- 
town,  and  force  of  circumstances  had  thrown  The  Girl 
in  pretty  close  contact  with  high-flyers.  You  see,  it 
all  came  about  this  way : 

She  had  been  playing  the  soubrette  part  in  some 
amateur  theatricals,  and  everybody  who  saw  her — ex- 
cept some  girl  friends  who  wanted  to  be  soubrettes, 
too — said  she  was  the  real  thing  and  that  she  had  Delh 
Fox  in  her  palmy  days  beaten  the  length  of  Chestnut 
street,  and  as  for  Millie  James,  why  there  was  nothing 
to  it. 

That  started  the  theatrical  bee  buzzing  in  her  con- 
ning-tower,  so  she  immediately  formed  the  habit  of 
reading  the  theatrical  papers  instead  of  the  society 
notes,  and  she  got  the  matinee  habit  so  bad  that  she 
didn't  miss  one  show  a  month.     Before  that  her  fad 


She  was  once  the  real  thing  on  physical  culture 


THE    LONG    WAY    'ROUND  29 

had  been  gymnastics  and  she  was  the  real  thing  on 
physical  culture. 

Now  when  a  girl  gets  that  way  she  needs  either  a 
husband  and  honeymoon  to  distract  her  attention  or 
a  hard-faced  guardian — female,  of  course — to  follow 
her  wherever  she  goes. 

So  in  view  of  the  fact  that  this  girl  had  neither,  she 
studied  the  play  bills  and  did  pretty  much  as  she  liked. 
She  was  just  ripe  to  sign  with  a  traveling  show  or 
listen  to  the  argument  of  any  actor  man  who  offered 
her  the  bait  of  a  chance  to  do  a  stunt  behind  the  foot- 
lights. She  lived  the  way  a  soubrette  ought  to  live — 
at  least,  she  thought  she  did.  In  a  locked  drawer  in 
her  dressing  case  she  kept  a  box  of  make-up,  and  when 
the  rest  of  the  family  had  retired  she  fixed  her  face 
up  so  she  looked  like  a  comic  valentine.  She  figured 
upon  this  as  a  sort  of  preliminary  training  in  case  she 
should  ever  get  a  chance  to  break  into  the  business ; 
look  like  a  twenty-dollar  gold  piece  to  the  public,  and 
feel  like  a  plugged  nickel  when  she  was  in  her  dollar- 
a-day  room  after  the  show.  She  might  have  been 
dreaming  yet  if  a  young  fellow  who  once  suped  for 
Mansfield  hadn't  made  her  acquaintance.  He  called  on 
her  at  her  home,  and  they  hadn't  been  talking  twenty 
minutes  when  she  sprung  the  soubrette  business,  and 
told  tiim  that  some  day  she  hoped  to  get  on  the  pro- 
fessional stage. 

"The  only  way  to  get  a  chance  is  to  go  to  New 
York,"  he  said.  "There's  where  all  the  good  shows 
start  from,  as  well  as  a  good  many  of  the  bad  ones, 
and  if  a  girl  has  talent,  an  agent  or  a  manager  will 
grab  her  just  the  same  as  a  hobo  will  grab  a  ham  sand- 


30  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

wich,  no  matter  what  his  nationality  is.  Why,  I  once 
knew  a  girl  who  went  there  from  Forked  River,  New 
Jersey.  She  didn't  know  anything,  but  she  had  ginger, 
and  she's  been  on  the  road  for  two  seasons  with  the 
Bon  Ton  Burlesquers.  What  do  you  think  of  that? 
Philadelphia's  all  right  in  a  way,  but  I'll  bet  if  Maude 
Adams  had  been  born  here  she'd  be  behind  the  ribbon 
counter  in  some  big  dry  goods  store  instead  of  the 
swellest  little  actress  that  ever  took  a  bunch  of  roses 
over  the  footlights." 

That  is  what  started  the  trouble,  and  that  night 
when  The  Girl  went  up  to  her  room  she  packed  a  dress- 
suit  case,  putting  in  her  grease  paints  first,  of  course, 
and  then  she  penned  a  neat  little  note  of  farewell  for- 
ever to  her  parents,  after  which  she  waited  until  the 
house  was  quiet  and  then  slipped  out  as  quietly  as  a 
burglar.  She  had  enough  money  to  make  the  break- 
away and  keep  her  about  thirty  days,  by  the  end  of 
which  time  she  figured  she  would  have  a  job  at  about 
fifty  per  week,  with  traveling  expenses  and  Pullman 
car  paid  by  the  manager. 

She  had  a  roseate  view  of  life,  and  she  thought  that 
as  soon  as  she  hit  the  big  burg  the  managers  would  be 
falling  over  each  other  trying  to  get  her  to  sign  a  con- 
tract. She  didn't  know  that  making  a  hit  in  a  little 
show  given  by  the  Golden  Rod  Society  for  the  Supply- 
ing of  Vegetables  to  the  Cannibal  Tribes  of  Africa  was 
quite  a  different  thing  to  going  on  the  professional 
stage,  and  she  imagined  if  she  could  do  well  in  the  part 
of  Betsey,  the  Romp,  in  "Who  Killed  Cock  Robin,"  she 
could  do  equally  well  on  the  stage  of  any  big  theatre. 

She  had  as  much  hope  as  a  piece  of  Swiss  cheese  has 
holes  when  she  climbed  aboard  the  sleeping  car  which 


THE    LONG    WAY    'ROUND  31 

was  scheduled  to  leave  for  New  York  at  1  A.  M.,  but 
when  she  landed  in  the  cold,  gray  dawn  a  good  part  of 
it  had  gone  and  had  left  her  a  trifle  weak  in  the  knees, 
which,  by  the  way,  is  a  decided  symptom  of  weakness. 

It  took  her  just  two  hours  to  find  a  boarding  house, 
and  until  the  next  day  to  get  her  nerve  back.  It  was 
only  because  of  her  youth  that  it  came  back  at  all 
She  got  a  list  of  the  names  of  managers  and  started 
out  to  do  business,  but  no  one  seemed  to  want  any 
amateur  soubrettes  from  Philadelphia.  By  two  o'clock 
there  was  nothing  that  looked  like  a  job,  but  she  had 
received  eleven  invitations  to  go  out  to  lunch  from 
eleven  different  genials  who  didn't  seem  to  want  to  talk 
business ;  who  were  inclined  to  be  affectionate  and 
who  called  her  "My  Dear"  in  every  other  sentence. 

That  night  she  went  to  a  vaudeville  show,  and  she 
was  so  impressed  with  the  ease  with  which  the  turns 
were  pulled  off  that  she  concluded  she  would  do  an  act 
of  her  own.  That  is  how  it  happened  that  the  day 
after  she  forsook  the  legitimate  for  the  variety,  and 
knocked  at  the  office  doors  of  a  different  species  of 
managers.  Very  busy  fellows  these  were,  too,  and 
she  got  her  dismissal  in  almost  every  case  with  start- 
ling rapidity. 

Here  is  a  sample  of  the  dialogue : 

"Where  have  you  worked  before?" 

"I  have  never  been  on  the  professional  stage,  but  I 
played  the  part  of  a  soubrette  in  amateur  shows  in 
Philadelphia,  and  all  my  friends  told  me  that " 

"But  have  you  an  act  of  your  own?" 

"No,  not  yet,  but " 

"Well,  you  frame  up  some  kind  of  an  act,  then  come 


32  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

around  and  see  me,  and  I  may  be  able  to  get  you  a 
trial  somewhere." 

And  then  twenty-three. 

Many  a  good  fighter  has  quit  when  he  found  every 
rush  he  made  was  stopped  with  a  tantalizing  jab  in  the 
nose,  and  many  a  man  has  thrown  up  the  sponge  when 
he  has  walked  the  streets  day  in  and  day  out  and  dis- 
covered that  nobody  wanted  him. 

At  the  end  of  a  week  The  Girl  would  have  written  a 
letter  home  or  taken  a  train  back  if  it  had  not  been  for 
her  pride.  She  didn't  want  to  acknowledge  defeat,  but 
she  was  on  the  verge  of  it. 

She  was  coming  out  of  a  theatre  one  night  when  she 
met  The  Man. 

There  must  be  a  man  else  there  would  be  no  story. 
He  was  about  forty-five  years  old,  had  been  through 
enough  campaigns  to  give  him  self-possession,  and  he 
had  been  successful  enough  to  be  egotistic.  Two  min- 
utes later  they  were  walking  down  Broadway  together, 
and  she  was  rather  glad  that  she  had  found  someone 
who  took  an  interest  in  her.  One-half  hour  after  that 
and  they  were  seated  at  a  table  in  a  big  restaurant ;  the 
order  had  been  given  and  she  was  telling  him  all  about 
herself  while  he  was  looking  her  over  with  an  exceed- 
ingly critical  eye  and  making  up  his  mind  that  she 
showed  up  rather  good  under  a  strong  light,  especially 
when  she  smiled. 

A  broiled  lobster,  a  quart  of  claret,  then  a  couple  of 
birds  and  a  quart  of  wine  are  enough  to  change  the 
ideas  and  opinions  of  a  lot  of  people,  especially  if  such 
a  bill  of  fare  is  unusual,  and  so  it  happened  that  when 
the  red  began  to  come  to  The  Girl's  cheeks,  the  things 
The  Man  were  saying  to  her  didn't  seem  so  much  out 


THE    LONG    WAY    'ROUND  33 

of  the  way  after  all.  Besides,  that  hall  bedroom  in  the 
musty  old  boarding  house  was  rapidly  becoming  a 
nightmare.  Between  you  and  me,  if  she  had  never 
smiled  this  thing  would  never  have  happened. 

The  Man  lighted  a  cigar,  and  as  he  blew  the  first 
puff  of  blue  smoke  toward  the  ceiling  he  observed : 

"My  dear,  marriage  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
useless  and  barbaric  rite,  and  when  it  is  all  summed  up 
it  amounts  to  nothing  in  the  end.  Why  should  you  be 
legally  bound  to  any  man  in  this  world?  It  would  be 
all  right  as  long  as  you  loved  him,  then  you  wouldn't 
care,  but  suppose  your  feelings  changed,  what  then? 
In  order  to  get  a  divorce  from  him  you  would  have  to 
catch  him  committing  a  crime  for  which  the  law  would 
grant  you  a  divorce,  or  get  good  evidence,  which 
amounts  to  the  same  thing.  You  might  separate  from 
him  if  he  was  cruel  to  you  or  didn't  support  you,  but 
suppose  he  was  kind  and  gave  you  all  the  money  you 
wanted,  then  you  would  still  have  to  live  with  him  as 
his  wife.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  if  you  were  not 
married  to  him,  you  would  have  a  perfect  right,  as 
soon  as  your  feelings  changed,  to  leave  him  without  a 
moment's  notice.  You  would  be  under  no  obligations 
to  him  under  any  circumstances,  and  he,  knowing  that 
you  were  free  to  go  and  come  as  you  pleased,  would,  in 
order  to  keep  you,  treat  you  with  greater  consideration 
than  if  you  were  his  wife.  You  can  believe  me  or  not, 
just  as  you  wish,  but  an  understanding  between  a  man 
and  a  woman  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  happiness  in  = 
this  world.  Don't  be  old-fashioned,  but  let  us  make  an 
agreement  of  some  kind  between  ourselves.  You  will 
be  perfectly  independent,  free  to  go  and  come  as  you 
like,  and  do  as  you  wish." 


34  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

There  was  a  certain  amount  of  logic  in  this  argu- 
ment, especially  when  the  reverse  of  the  picture  is  a 
cheap  room  in  a  cheap  boarding  house.  So  the  end 
of  the  first  chapter  was  that  the  landlady  wondered 
why  her  lodger  never  came  back,  even  to  get  her  case 
and  the  few  belongings  it  contained.  It  'was  all  mys- 
terious to  her,  but  as  she  was  paid  in  advance,  she 
said  nothing,  and  at  the  end  of  the  week  rented  the 
room  to  an  old  fellow  with  asthma  who  was  living  on 
an  allowance. 

So  far  as  the  stage  was  concerned,  that  bright  bub- 
ble had  burst,  and  instead  of  haunting  the  offices  of 
managers,  The  Girl  took  to  breakfasting  at  10,  lunch- 
ing at  2  and  dining  at  8.  The  theatres  to  her  were 
merely  places  of  amusement — good  to  fill  in  time  which 
could  be  used  in  no  other  way,  and  her  ambition  to 
shine  as  a  footlight  favorite  went  when  she  found 
that  she  could  live  without  being  annoyed  by  any  of  the 
responsibilities  of  life.  She  gradually  grew  to  know 
that  the  name  of  The  Man  was  a  very  familiar  one  in 
the  big  cities  and  at  times  the  newspapers  printed  his 
picture.  She  had  assumed  that  name — it  was  in  the 
compact,  although  there  were  few  who  knew  it.  Sev- 
eral times,  when  he  called  on  her,  he  brought  some 
of  his  friends  to  dinner,  but  these  occasions  were  not 
frequent,  by  any  means,  and  she  knew  she  wasn't  a 
part  of  his  intimate  life. 

Now  see  how  time  makes  puppets  of  both  men  and 
women,  for  this  story  has  one  merit  in  that  it  is  true. 

The  Man  took  sick  in  Chicago,  and  the  first  she 
knew  of  it  was  when  she  read  it  in  the  newspapers. 
Every  stage  of  his  disease  was  chronicled  until  he  died, 
and  when  she  read  that  the  paper  dropped  from  her 


THE    LONG    WAY    'ROUND  35 

hands  and  she  felt  again  that  weakness  of  the  knees 
which  took  her  on  that  first  morning  in  New  York. 
For  four  days  she  lived  in  a  dream,  vaguely  wondering 
what  was  to  become  of  her,  and  then  a  brisk,  alert, 
dapper  little  man— a  lawyer — called.  There  was  noth- 
ing sentimental  about  him.  He  was  business  from  the 
drop  of  the  hat. 

"I  represent  the  family  of  The  Man,"  he  announced, 
abruptly.  "There  is  a  codicil  in  his  will  which  Be- 
queaths you  $250,000.  Of  course,  we  can  break  that 
and  not  half  try,  but  the  widow  and  children  don't 
want  any  unpleasant  notoriety,  and  they  are  willing  to 
settle  for  $50,000,  which  I  can  pay  to  you  at  once.  You 
will  accept,  if  you  are  wise,  for  $50,000  is  a  nice  little 
sum  and  it  will  leave  you  free  and  clear  to  do  as  you 
please  and  will  dispose  of  a  very  unpleasant  situation." 

The  death  of  The  Man  had  given  her  a  shock  from 
which  she  hadn't  yet  recovered,  and  she  asked  for  time 
to  think. 

"Come  to-morrow  or  the  day  after,"  she  said,  "and  I 
will  talk  to  you.     I  can't  think  now." 

He  wanted  to  finish  it  up  at  once,  but  every  time  she 
gave  him  the  same  answer,  so  there  was  nothing  for 
him  to  do  but  to  go. 

And  then  that  night  there  came  another  lawyer,  one 
whom  she  had  known  because  The  Man  had  brought 
him  on  one  of  his  visits.    His  argument  was  different : 

"There  is  $250,000  coming  to  you ;  get  it.  It  is  a 
clean-cut,  legal  will  and  they  can't  break  it,  besides 
there  is  enough  there  for  everybody  and  to  spare.  Let 
me  manage  it  for  you  and  don't  worry.  If  they  want 
to  contest  let  them  go  ahead  and  I'll  beat  them." 


36  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

And  because  he  said  "Don't  worry;  leave  it  all  to 
me,"  she  consented.     That  was  the  woman  of  it. 

They  did  fight,  and  the  newspapers  printed  columns 
about  it,  for  it  was  a  great  story,  but  they  didn't  print 
the  part  I  am  telling  here,  for  that  they  didn't  know. 
With  the  articles  appeared  her  portraits,  and  she  be- 
came as  well  known  as  The  Man  had  been,  in  a  way. 

Before  the  finish  had  been  reached  the  heirs  con- 
cluded there  had  better  be  a  settlement,  and  so,  rather 
than  stand  the  delay  of  appeals  in  case  she  won,  which 
it  was  reasonably  sure  she  would  do,  she  accepted 
$150,000  in  cash. 

The  next  day  her  maid  brought  her  a  card.    It  read : 
"Alfred  D.  Cohen, 

Theatrical  Promoter." 

"I'll  see  him,"  she  said. 

She  had  learned  a  thing  or  two  since  she  had  left 
Philadelphia,  so  she  knew  what  was  coming  and  was 
prepared  for  it  when  the  polite,  suave  Mr.  Cohen 
walked  into  the  room. 

"I  have  come,"  he  said,  by  way  of  introduction,  "to 
make  you  an  offer  to  go  on  the  stage." 

"Yes?"  she  queried,  calmly. 

"All  you  will  have  to  do  is  to  sing  two  or  three  songs 
twice  a  day — once  in  the  afternoon  and  once  in  the 
evening — and  I  am  authorized  to  offer  you  $750  a 
week." 

"And  suppose  I  can't  sing?"  she  said,  smiling,  think- 
ing of  the  last  time  she  had  talked  with  a  manager. 

"That  would  make  no  difference ;  we  would  have 
you  coached  and  can  give  you  ten  weeks  straight."  He 
fumbled  at  his  coat  nervously,  for  she  was  really  an 
important    personage    now.      "I    have    the    contracts 


THE    LONG    WAY    'ROUND  37 

here."  He  produced  them  and  handed  them  over.  She 
read  them  over  carefully,  debated  mentally  as  to  the 
policy  of  signing  at  once  or  waiting  until  another  day, 
finally  decided  on  the  side  of  deliberation,  and  then 
said: 

"Come  and  see  me  to-morrow  at  2  and  I  will  let  you 
know  then." 

He  knew  intuitively  she  would  accept,  so  he  bowed 
himself  out  without  further  argument. 

So  that  is  how  she  at  last  went  on  the  stage,  and  if 
your  memory  serves  you  well  enough  to  take  you  back 
a  year  or  so  you  will  know  that  she  made  a  hit  as  the 
singer  of  songs  of  long  ago. 

P.  S. — She  told  her  folks  in  Philadelphia  that  she 
had  been  studying  voice  culture  all  the  time. 


A  dose  of  knockout  drops  proved  the  turning  point  in  her  life 


THE  QUEEN  OF  CHINATOWN 

If  you  don't  think  there  are  any  interesting  tales  in 
the  Tenderloin,  just  go  there  some  night  and  look 
around.  You  don't  have  to  look  long  before  you  will 
find  something  that  is  worth  going  a  distance  for. 

You'll  find  tragedy  and  pathos  as  close  together  as 
the  meat  is  to  the  bread  in  a  ham  sandwich,  and  it 
doesn't  take  a  Sherlock  Holmes  to  discover  it,  either. 

I  know  a  few  things  about  the  Bowery  and  the 
Tenderloin,  and  for  the  past  twenty  years  I  have 
roamed  about  New  York  by  night,  simply  because  I 
was  fascinated  by  the  life  after  dark.  Of  course,  you 
know  that  this  night  owl  business  is  a  disease,  and 
when  once  you  get  it,  and  get  it  good,  it  is  one  of  the 
hardest  things  in  the  world  to  cure.  In  my  day  I  have 
seen  many  a  nice,  straightforward  young  fellow  go  to 
the  bad  simply  because  he  got  the  night  habit. 

It  isn't  much  of  a  combination  that  gets  you,  either, 
for  it's  the  white  lights,  the  music,  the  women  and  the 
drinks,  not  counting  the  good  fellowship,  or  what 
passes  for  good  fellowship,  on  the  side. 

The  lid  is  on  in  New  York  to  a  certain  extent,  that 
I'll  admit,  but  I'm,  going  to  take  you  under  the  lid. 

It's  all  a  bluff,  anyhow,  and  things  go  on  the  same  as 
they  have  been  going  for  years,  with  very  little  change. 

The  same  kind  of  girls  are  roaming  the  streets,  the 
same  kind  of  booze  is  being  served  on  the  little  round 
tables   in  stuffy  back  rooms,   and   the   same   class   of 


40  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

waiters  are  making  short  change  whenever  the  mark 
looks  easy.  There  may  be  a  new  police  captain  in  the 
district  or  the  precinct,  but  there  are  some  things  in 
this  world  that  can't  be  held  down  any  more  than  a 
man  can  hold  down  a  charge  of  dynamite  after  the  cap 
has  been  exploded. 

Talk  about  your  high  pressure  life — that's  it.  Ten 
years  is  the  limit  for  the  careful  ones,  and  I've  seen 
them  go  off  in  five.  Why,  only  the  other  day  a  hospital 
ambulance  backed  up  to  a  downtown  tenement,  and 
when  it  went  away  it  carried  a  woman  whose  lease 
of  life  had  about  expired. 

There  was  a  crowd  which  gathered,  as  usual — men, 
women  and  children,  all  filled  with  a  morbid  curiosity, 
which  makes  people  flock  and  gaze  with  interest  at 
anything  which  approaches  a  bit  of  human  wreckage, 
and  of  them  all  there  was  not  more  than  one  or  two 
who  knew  that  the  sick  woman  had  once  been  known 
as  the  Queen  of  Chinatown,  and  had  been  made  the 
subject  of  many  an  interesting  story. 

It  seems  only  a  few  years  ago  that  they  called  her 
the  Queen,  and  you  wondered  why  until  you  looked 
at  her  and  heard  her  talk. 

Then  you  knew. 

She  was  more  than  good  looking,  and  what  was  just 
a  bit  rarer,  she  was  educated.  There  was  about  her  a 
certain  amount  of  refinement  which  forced  itself  to  the 
surface  like  a  life  preserver  under  water,  every  once  in 
a  while,  but  which  as  the  years  rolled  on  gradually  dis- 
appeared, just  like  any  other  veneer.  If  the  constant 
dropping  of  water  will  wear  away  a  stone,  in  just  so 
sure  a  way  will  environment  contaminate,  and  human 
nature  seek  the  lower  level. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    CHINATOWN  41 

So  here  is  the  picture : 

This  so-called  Queen,  coming  into  Chinatown — by 
what  route  only  she  can  tell — and  creating  a  mild  sen- 
sation among  the  Orientals  who  inhabit  the  houses  on 
those  narrow,  twisting  streets.  The  story  was  that  a 
dose  of  knockout  drops  had  proved  the  turning  point 
in  her  life. 

John  Chinaman,  you  know,  has  a  keen  eye  for  the 
beautiful,  not  only  in  decorative  art  and  choice  silks, 
but  in  women. 

There  is  his  one  weak  point,  the  defective  link  in  the 
chain,  the  one  vulnerable  spot  in  the  armor  of  his 
stony  reserve. 

The  lobbygows — the  errand  men  of  the  Chinese — 
the  whites,  who  execute  commissions  for  them,  and  do 
all  sorts  of  services,  both  legitimate  and  illegitimate, 
who  will  work  in  the  dark  as  well  as  in  the  light,  and 
whose  heels  can  be  hurried  by  extra  compensation,  saw 
and  noted  this  Queen  also,  and  in  seeing,  they,  too, 
admired,  but  more  or  less  hopelessly.  The  one  spot 
which  is  quick  in  a  woman's  composition  in  adulation. 
Let  her  be  like  ice,  as  cold  and  pure  and  reserved  as 
her  likeness  carved  out  of  the  whitest  Parian  marble, 
or  the  hardest  of  flint-like  granite,  and  admiration  will 
make  her  as  soft  and  supple  as  a  Cleopatra. 

She  comes  into  her  own  and  knows  it. 

She  smiles  and  looks  about  for  a  likely  head  upon 
which  to  drop  the  wreath  of  her  favors,  and  if  she  hesi- 
tates it  is  because  the  right  head  has  not  been  bowed, 
or  that  her  whim  bids  her  hold  off  that  she  may  only 
succumb  after  a  struggle. 

I  am  not  putting  up  any  defense  for  this  Chinatown 
Queen.     She  was  simply  a  woman  with  moods  and 


42  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

humors,  and  pretty  ways.  Furthermore,"  which  is  es- 
sential in  most  cases,  she  was  good  to  look  at. 

So  many  were  the  affairs  that  she  had  that  there  is 
no  Solomon  wise  enough  to  tell  how  or  when  the  first 
one  began.  All  that  is  known  is  that  she  dressed  in 
silks  that  were  costly  enough  for  a  real  queen,  and 
which  smelled  of  the  spices  and  perfume  of  the  Orient. 

When  I  say  costly,  I  mean  from  a  money  standard. 
They  were  more  costly  than  that,  so  far  as  she  was 
concerned  personally,  for  in  the  end  they  cost  her  her 
life,  and  if  she  is  not  dead  yet  they  certainly  cost  her 
happiness,  which  really  amounts  to  the  same  thing. 

For  a  while  she  lived  furiously,  with  anything  she 
wanted  for  the  asking.  Fine  clothes,  fine  jewels,  and 
money  to  spend  is  part  of  every  woman's  life. 

More  than  that,  it  is  a  keystone. 

Besides,  she  was  the  most  prominent  woman  in  all 
the  Quarter.    For  her  that  was  fame  and  glory  enough. 

Had  she  been  placed,  by  a  fortunate  move,  some- 
where else  on  the  chess-board  of  life,  her  fame  might 
have  been  more  secure,  but  what  difference  does  that 
make,  so  long  as  she  was  satisfied  ? 

It  wasn't  long  before  her  real  life  began,  when  her 
steps,  instead  of  being  on  the  level  or  upward,  traced 
their  gradual  way  downward. 

That  was  inevitable  in  that  case,  just  as  it  is  in  other 
cases  where  constancy  is  an  unknown  virtue. 

She  passed  from  hand  to  hand  like  the  chattel  that 
she  was.  She  didn't  even  consider  the  proposition  of 
the  highest  bidder,  and  start  a  hoard  in  some  secret 
place  which  would  have  been  a  life  raft  to  her  in  the 
turbulent  days  to  come. 


THE    QUEEN    OF    CHINATOWN  43 

She  lived  on  promises,  and  those  are  false  things 
which  fall  to  bits  before  adverse  winds  and  threaten- 
ing weather.  Her  spirits  rose  and  fell  in  an  inverse 
ratio  to  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  and  she  took 
no  heed  of  the  days  to  come.  The  seed  of  thrift  failed 
to  find  lodgment  in  her  being. 

And  another  thing,  she  never  knew  the  real  meaning 
of  the  word  opportunity. 

In  her  early  and  halcyon  days  before  the  opium  and 
the  night  life  had  stamped  its  mark  upon  her  face, 
there  came,  with  a  party  of  sight-seers  to  Chinatown 
one  night,  a  man  about  town  whose  name  stood  for  re- 
spectability, good  family  and  wealth.  She,  as  Queen, 
could  not  well  be  overlooked,  and  the  guide  took  the 
party  to  her  apartments  on  the  first  floor  o'f  a  dingv 
tenement. 

"What's  up  here?"  asked  one  of  the  party. 

"Here  is  where  de  Queen  of  Chinatown  lives,"  re- 
sponded the  guide.  "Dis  is  de  gal  wots  got  all  de  gang 
on  de  run,  and  as  fer  de  Chinkys — why,  dere  ain't  one 
uv  dem  wot  wouldn't  croak  a  guy  fer  her." 

They  filed  into  the  room  and  looked  at  trie  girl  as 
they  looked  at  the  rest  of  the  odd  sights. 

Let  anybody  rise  above  the  human  herd,  even  a  short- 
distance,  or  do  anything  that  is  in  the  slightest  way  un- 
usual, and  they  are  bound  to  find  themselves  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  spot  light. 

"Youse  kin  buy  a  drink  off  her,  if  yer  like,  or  if  yer'll 
cough  up  er  bone  apiece,  she'll  show  yer  how  to  hit  der 
pipe,"  announced  the  guide. 

They  thought  it  was  worth  a  dollar  each  to  see  a 
Queen  smoking  opium,  and  all  cheerfully  handed  her 


44  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

the  fee,  with  the  exception  of  this  one  particular  man, 
who  pressed  five  times  the  amount  into  her  hand. 

Curious  things  happen  in  this  world  of  ours,  and 
here  is  one  of  them : 

Two  hours  later,  the  same  man,  who  had  slipped 
away  from  his  party,  hunted  up  the  same  guide,  and 
giving  hivi  a  good-sized  fee  requested  the  honor  of  an- 
other visit  to  the  Queen. 

The  moral  tone  of  Chinatown  is  not  so  high  that 
when  the  guide  was  dismissed  he  should  feel  at  all 
offended.  He  was  perfectly  satisfied,  and  he  said  so  a 
few  minutes  later  as  he  was  relating  this  story  to  some 
of  his  friends  in  the  saloon  on  the  corner. 

From  this  point  the  Queen  herself  takes  up  the  tale. 
She  told  it  to  her  bosom  friend,  the  Rummager,  a 
week  later,  and  the  Rummager's  eyes  bulged  and  her 
mouth  opened  as  she  heard  it.  More  than  once  she 
was  inclined  to  disbelieve  it,  and  said  so,  but  the  facts 
were  there  and  proven  by  the  presence  of  certain  arti- 
cles which  could  be  accounted  for  in  no  other  way. 

"He  was  one  of  the  real  ones,"  remarked  the  Queen, 
"and  I  knew  it  as  soon  as  I  saw  him.  I  have  seen  fel- 
lows stuck  good  and  strong,  but  he  was  the  limit.  He 
was  clean  gone.  When  he  came  back  the  second  time 
he  began  as  all  the  others  do,  by  asking  me  how  I  came 
to  live  in  Chinatown.  I  told  him  to  cut  it  out,  and  cut 
it  quick,  and  he  took  my  tip.  He  didn't  lose  a  minute 
telling  me  he  liked  me,  either,  and,  say,  he  promised 
me  everything  you  could  think  of,  up  and  down,  if  I 
would  cut  the  gang  and  go  with  him.  He  said  I  could 
have  the  swellest  flat  that  money  could  buy,  and  a 
horse  and  carriage,  if  I  liked.  I  thought  he  was  kid- 
ding at  first,  but  he  soon  put  me  wise  that  he  was  the 


THE    QUEEN    OF    CHINATOWN  45 

goods.  He  chinned  to  me  for  about  an  hour,  and  then 
he  told  me  to  put  on  my  glad  rags  and  he  would  take 
me  uptown  to  a  feed.  I  was  on  in  a  minute,  and  noth- 
ing but  a  cab  would  do  for  him.  We  went  up  on 
Broadway,  and  the  layout  cost  him  $25,  easy. 

"We  come  down  the  line  and  butted  into  every  joint 
that  had  a  light  out,  and  every  place  we  hit  was  a  bottle 
of  wine.  And  every  drink  we  took  it  was,  'Well,  will 
you  leave  that  crowd?' 

"On  the  level,  once  or  twice  he  had  me  going,  but 
when  I  thought  of  all  the  boys  down  here,  and  the 
good  times  we're  having  I  couldn't  do  it,  and  I  told 
him  so.  When  I  left  him  he  was  ossified  for  fair,  and 
he  gave  me  these  things  to  remember  him  by,  he  said." 

Whereupon  the  Queen  showed  up  a  roll  of  bills,  a 
scarf  pin,  a  match  box,  and  the  Rummager  believed. 

She  couldn't  afford  to  do  otherwise  very  well,  for 
the  Queen  was,  as  usual,  doing  all  the  buying  of 
drinks,  and  the  Rummager's  thirst  has  been  compared 
to  a  barrel  of  sponges. 

It  was  only  the  other  day  that  I  found  myself  won- 
dering what  had  become  of  that  pin  and  box.  Where 
have  they  been  since  then  and  who  has  owned  them  ? 
That  they  have  fallen  into  many  hands  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  and  the  first  to  get  them  was  the  pawnbroker. 

But  after  that ! 

From  silks  the  Queen  went  to  calico.  That  is  a  great 
chasm  for  any  woman  to  cross,  and  from  three  rooms 
she  came  down  to  one.  Xotice  how  easily  the  human 
being  can  adjust  itself  to  changes. 

The  nights  of  dissipation  had  begun  to  leave  their 
mark,  and  her  throne  was  tottering. 


46  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

The  plumpness  of  her  figure  began  to  disappear,  and 
angles  crept  in  to  take  the  place  of  curves.  Her  eyes 
were  less  bright,  and  her  enthusiasm  had  lost  its  edge. 

But  she  didn't  realize  this. 

She  thought  she  was  still  Queen  and  she  was  living 
on  her  past,  just  as  many  other  real  queens  have,  and 
for  that  she  is  to  be  forgiven,  for  it  is  a  woman's  right 
to  think  herself  the  same  as  she  was  when  she  was  at 
her  best. 

It  is  the  life  buoy  to  which  she  always  clings,  and 
when  she  dies  her  arms  are  found  clasped  about  it  with 
the  grip  of  death. 

And  then  the  day  came  when  this  Queen,  a  wisp  and 
shred  of  a  woman,  whose  dreams  had  gone,  and  whose 
calico  had  turned  to  rags,  went  down  the  street  of  the 
Quarter  one  night  never  to  return. 

She  had  married  a  man  of  her  class,  and  they  went 
into  a  tenement  together. 

Her  sun  had  set — her  day  was  done. 

One  day  the  priest  was  sent  for  to  shrive  her.  I  hope 
there  was  consolation  in  his  visit,  because  a  dethroned 
queen  needs  pity  sometimes. 


A  GIRL  OF  THE  GOLDEN  GATE 

When  you  go  to  the  theatre,  sit  in  a  comfortable 
seat,  and  look  at  the  gay,  laughing  girls  who  are  doing 
all  sorts  of  stunts  in  the  front  row,  you  are  evidently 
under  the  impression  that  their  lives  are  simply  one  un- 
ending series  of  revels  and  that  they  live  in  luxurious 
ease.  In  your  fancy  you  see  them  going  to  magnificent 
apartments  to  enjoy  late  dinners  washed  down  by 
high-priced  wine;  you  think,  perhaps,  that  they  dress 
just  as  you  see  them  on  the  stage,  and  that  all  they 
have  to  do  is  ask  for  anything  they  happen  to  want  and 
it  is  theirs. 

Your  imagination  paints  you  a  wonderful  picture  of 
love  behind  the  scenes,  but  like  children's  fairy  tales, 
half  is  a  dream. 

You  are  simply  bringing  into  existence  a  mental 
painting  in  very  attractive  colors,  and  if  you  could 
make  it  real  it  would  be  a  very  fine  thing  for  the  girl 
who  makes  up  that  she  may  look  well  from  behind  the 
footlights. 

There  are  few  short  cuts  to  the  stage  and  the  roads 
are  for  the  most  part  hard  and  tiresome.  The  woman 
who  gets  there,  and  by  that  I  mean  the  one  who  finally 
lands  with  a  reputation,  usually  has  a  past  that  would 
make  interesting  reading — if  it  could  be  published, 
which  is  out  of  the  question. 

To-day  there  is  a  woman  in  New  York  who  is  a  star. 


48  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

So  far  as  real  talent  is  concerned  she  ought  to  have 
been  a  star  years  ago,  but  there  was  some  hitch  and 
she  failed  to  connect. 

She's  all  right  now,  however,  and  when  she  pulls 
down  her  fat  bundle  of  bills  every  week  she  doesn't 
think  of  the  old  days  on  the  Pacific  Coast  when  she 
was  doing  one  turn  an  hour  in  the  mining  camps,  and 
well  content  if  she  got  enough  at  the  end  of  the  show 
to  pay  for  her  room  and  give  her  a  balance  on  the  side 
to  keep  up  her  wardrobe — stage  wardrobe,  I  mean — 
for  she  didn't  seem  to  care  much  how  she  dressed  when 
on  the  street,  and  so  far  as  that  was  concerned,  she 
was  on  the  street  very  little,  for  reasons  that  are  ob- 
vious. 

She  was  a  nice  looking  little  girl  in  those  days,  full 
of  ginger  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  she  had  the 
kind  of  magnetism  that  made  a  good  many  men  think 
they  couldn't  live  without  her.  She  was  bright  and 
saucy,  and  happy-go-lucky,  taking  things  as  they 
came,  singing  her  songs  with  an  abandon  and  grace 
that  went  a  long  way  toward  filling  up  the  house. 

But  it  was  when  she  danced  that  she  was  at  her  best. 
That  half-wild  Spanish  Cachuca  made  those  rough 
men  rise  to  their  feet  and  cheer  her  as  if  she  was  the 
most  wonderful  girl  in  the  world,  and  when  the  boys 
were  flush  many  a  hundred  dollars  in  gold  went  over 
the  flickering  footlights  to  her  feet,  so  that  she  really 
and  truly  danced  on  gold.  It  was  the  Westerners'  way 
of  paying  homage  to  anyone  they  liked,  and  it  is  done 
to-day,  but  not  to  so  great  an  extent. 

You  see,  there  was  no  limit  on  those  fellows  in  the 
blue  shirts  and  bearded  faces,  and  what  was  a  hand- 


A     GIRL    OF    THE    GOLDEN    GATE  49 

ful  of  gold  more  or  less  to  them  then  or  at  any  other 
time? 

They  were  an  open-handed  lot,  living  only  for  the 
day,  and  to  the  devil  with  to-morrow,  lavishing  all 
they  had  upon  anyone  whom  they  liked. 

As  the  money  rolled  in  to  her  so  it  rolled  out,  easily 
and  without  apparent  effort,  and  at  the  end  of  a  year 
she  had  just  what  she  started  with — a  couple  of  dress- 
es, the  most  part  of  which  was  tinsel. 

And  that  brings  me  right  back  into  the  heart  of  this 
story,  the  preliminary  having  been  sufficiently  long  to 
give  you  a. thorough  introduction  to  this  little  lady 
— queen  of  the  mining  camps. 

It  isn't  likely  you  ever  heard  of  a  fellow  who  for 
some  romantic  reason  or  other  called  himself  Palo 
Alto  Bill.  He  was  a  tin  horn  gambler,  good  at  short 
cards,  willing  to  take  a  chance  at  any  proposition  that 
ever  came  over  the  hills,  so  long  as  he  could  figure  in 
it  financially,  but  he  had  no  heart.  It  was  all  Bill  from 
first  to  last,  and  he  didn't  have  enough  generosity  in 
his  entire  system  to  drop  a  bone  to  a  hungry  dog.  You 
know  the  breed — they  think  they  are  all  right,  but  they 
are  so  eaten  up  with  selfishness,  and  egotism,  and  van- 
ity, that  they  stride  along  with  their  elbows  pushed 
out,  as  if  they  were  going  to  shove  everybody  else  off 
the  earth. 

He  was  handsome  all  right,  with  black  hair — black 
as  an  Indian's — a  curling  mustache,  and  a  wonderfully 
taking  way  with  a  woman. 

This  was  the  combination  that  stacked  itself  up 
against  the  little  singer  with  the  suggestion  that  they 
travel  in  double  harness  for  mutual  benefit. 

That  was  all  there  was  to  it. 


: 


'"   "~ 


A  wonderful  but  untrue  picture  of  love  behind  the  scenes 


A    <GIRL    OF    THE    GOLDEN    GATE  51 

He  saw  her,  he  liked  her ;  why  shouldn't  he  have 
her?  And  if  she  had  been  married  it  would  have  been 
the  same  to  him.  He  would  in  all  probability  have 
suggested  an  elopement  on  a  pair  of  fast  horses. 

"How  long  have  you  been  in  the  business,  Sis  ?"  was 
the  way  he  started  it. 

He  was  smoking  a  cigarette  at  the  time  and  he  didn't 
even  take  the  trouble  to  look  at  her,  but  holding  his 
head  back,  blew  the  rings  of  smoke,  one  after  the 
other,  toward  the  low  ceiling. 

"Oh,  about  a  year,  and  I've  been  making  good  ever 
since  I  started." 

"That's  what  you  have.  I  suppose  you've  got  a  big 
bunch  of  coin  by  this  time,  eh  ?" 

"If  I  have  I  wish  someone  would  find  it  for  me. 
There  may  be  a  lot  of  fun  in  the  game,  but  there's  no 
money,  that  is,  not  yet." 

"Well,  let  me  give  you  just  one  straight  tip.  What 
you  want  is  a  manager — someone  to  boom  you.  Sup- 
pose you  and  I  double  up,  and  then  I'll  show  you  how 
to  get  the  money,  and  hold  it,  too.  Nothing  cheap 
about  me.  You're  a  good  fellow  and  I'm  a  good  fel- 
low, and  we  can  do  well  together.  I'll  put  you  where 
you  belong,  for  you  ain't  getting  half  of  what's  coming 
to  you.     How  about  it?" 

Just  remember  that  this  was  in  the  West,  where  a 
girl  has  a  mighty  hard  time  of  it  without  a  protector 
of  some  sort,  and  that  there  were  a  hundred  tie-ups  by 
mutual  consent  for  one  real  swell  matrimonial  clinch, 
with  a  sky-pilot  to  sing  his  little  song  of  "I  now  pro- 
nounce you  man  and  wife."  Also  bear  in  mind  that 
she  had  known  Bill  about  six  months  and  that  his  style 
rather  appealed  to  her,  because  he  was  artistic  in  a 


52  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

crude  sort  of  a  way,  and  besides,  he  wore  his  clothes 
with  a  certain  amount  of  grace  that  was  good  for  the 
female  eye  to  look  on. 

So  they  tied  up  together  and  Bill  began  his  life  of 
ease  and  prosperity.  The  next  week  was  announced 
as  her  grand  farewell  appearance,  and  she  was  the  re- 
cipient every  night  of  a  testimonial  of  so  substantial 
a  character  that,  as  she  herself  put  it,  her  salary 
seemed  like  pennies  for  candy.  In  these  many  testi- 
monials might  have  been  recognized  the  fine  Italian 
touch  of  Bill,  who  had  a  Hermann-like  knack  of  wav- 
ing his  hands  in  the  empty  air  and  producing  real 
money.  And  while  she  was  busy  picking  up  the  nug- 
gets and  gold  bucks  which  the  enthusiastic  miners 
flung  at  her,  he  was  attending  to  his  end  of  the  con- 
tract by  arranging  a  tour.  He  had  a  few  schemes 
under  his  hat  that  would  have  brought  him  in  all  kinds 
of  money  if  he  had  had  a  fair  swing,  but  he  was  born 
with  the  soul  of  a  grafter,  and  that  is  very  much  like 
a  taint  in  the  blood,  in  that  it  can  never  be  effaced. 
It  may  disappear  for  a  while,  but  it  is  always  liable  to 
turn  up  at  the  most  unexpected  time. 

When  the  week  was  done  the  company  started — the 
company  in  this  case  being  a  couple  of  miners,  who 
were  in  hard  luck  and  who  went  ahead  of  the  show ; 
Bill  and  the  girl. 

I  saw  her  the  other  night  in  a  famous  eating  place 
on  Broadway  putting  away  a  chop  and  a  small  bottle, 
and  I  wondered  then  if  she  remembered  San  Bernar- 
dino that  June  morning  when  everything  she  had  in 
the  world  was  held  in  one  small  bag  which  Bill  carried. 

The  plan  of  procedure  was  simple.  She  was  to  get 
a  date  in  a  town,  Bill  was  to  go  around  and  boom  her 


A    GIRL    OF    THE    GOLDEN    GATE  53 

as  the  best  that  ever  hit  the  Coast,  and  tell  of  the  hit 
she  made  in  'Frisco.  Then  when  she  came  on  the 
stage  to  do  her  dance  the  two  hobos  were  to  start  the 
cheering.  Toward  the  finish  of  the  act  one  of  them 
was  to  walk  down  the  aisle  to  the  footlights  and  toss 
up  a  handful  of  gold  coins,  and  then  the  other  was  to 
follow  suit.  That  would  start  the  crowd  giving  up; 
for  after  all,  people  are  like  sheep,  they  will  always 
follow  a  leader. 

It  was  a  good  stunt,  and  there  wasn't  any  chance  for 
a  failure. 

It  worked  out  just  as  Bill  figured  it  would,  and  it 
kept  him  busy  enough  looking  after  the  money  end  of 
the  game. 

It  was  the  turn  in  the  tide  for  her  so  far  as  her 
fortunes  and  popularity  were  concerned,  and  she  sim- 
ply created  a  furore  wherever  she  appeared.  In  those 
days  she  wore  a  twenty-dollar  gold  piece  around  her 
neck.  It  was  held  by  a  string  which  ran  through  a 
hole  she  had  bored  herself  with  a  great  deal  of  labor. 
It  was  the  first  piece  of  money  she  had  ever  received 
over  the  footlights  and  she  said  it  was  her  mascot,  and 
declared  she  would  always  keep  it.  It  might  have 
been  her  mascot,  but  I'll  bet  a  hundred  to  one  that 
she  hasn't  it  now. 

Put  a  good  looking  girl  on  the  stage,  have  her  make 
a  hit  so  that  she  is  talked  about,  and  she'll  attract  more 
men  than  a  leg  show  in  Paris.  There's  an  irresistible 
fascination  about  the  stage  that  makes  even  bald- 
headed  old  papas  fall.  It's  a  hard  thing  to  figure  out, 
but  it's  a  fact,  nevertheless. 

In  this  particular  case  they  flocked  around  her  like 
sheep  for  a  shelter  when  a  storm  is  in  the  air,  and  the 


54  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

girl  took  to  wearing  good  clothes,  ordered  from 
'Frisco,  and  using  to  their  full  capacity  the  services  of 
a  maid. 

And  then  there  came  upon  the  scene  the  other  man. 
He  had  hit  the  Coast  from  Colorado,  and  his  mine  was 
turning  out  the  yellow  stuff  so  fast  that  he  had  more 
than  he  could  do  to  spend  it.  He  was  busily  engaged 
in  the  exciting  pastime  of  buying  everything  he  saw 
when  he  met  the  girl  that  Bill  was  leading  along  the 
golden  road  to  wealth.  There  was  nothing  half-way 
about  his  methods,  so  he  promptly  went  out  and 
bought  the  biggest  diamond  he  could  find,  put  it  in 
an  envelope  upon  which  he  wrote  in  lead  pencil : 

"The  best  stone  for  the  nicest  girl ;  come  and  have 
a  bottle  of  wine  with  me  after  the  show." 

He  didn't  need  to  sign  his  name  to  it,  for  the  stage 
hand  who  received  a  ten-dollar  gold  piece  as  a  tip  for 
taking  it  to  her  pointed  him  out  as  he  sat  at  one  of  the 
tables  well  up  toward  the  stage. 

"He  seemed  to  be  kind  of  stuck  on  you,"  he  remarked 
casually;  "will  I  tell  him  you'll  see  him?" 

She  put  the  ring  on  her  finger  and  looked  at  it  critic- 
ally, holding  it  first  this  way  and  that  so  that  the  light 
would  catch  it.  The  inspection  evidently  pleased  her, 
for  she  said : 

"Sure ;  he's  entitled  to  it  after  this." 

That  is  how  it  came  about  that,  still  in  her  stage 
dress,  she  went  directly  from  the  stage  to  the  table 
where  Croesus  sat  and  smiled  on  him,  while  the  dia- 
mond flashed  like  a  calcium. 

One  bottle  broke  the  ice,  two  put  them  on  a  friendly 
footing,  and  three  made  them  lifelong  friends.  They 
were  on  the  fourth  and  their  heads  were  close  together. 


A    GIRL    OF    THE    GOLDEN    GATE  55 

He  was  talking  in  a  low  tone,  while  she  was  listening 
intently  and  nodding  her  head  in  affirmation  every 
moment  or   so  when  Bill  happened  along. 

He  didn't  like  the  looks  of  this  and  he  showed  it 
plainly.  He  touched  her  on  the  shoulder  with  an  air 
of  proprietorship  and  remarked  curtly : 

"Come  on." 

"Who's  your  friend?"  asked  the  wine  opener;  "in- 
troduce me." 

"I'm  the  real  one,"  said  Bill. 

"Husband?"    asked    the    other,    laconically. 

"Not  yet,"  she  answered. 

"Oh,"  and  his  eyebrows  were  lifted  a  trifle.  Then 
he  turned  to  Bill.  "Sit  down  and  have  a  drink;  I 
want  to  talk  to  you." 

Then  the  fifth  bottle  was  brought  on. 

He  held  his  brimming  glass  aloft. 

"Wish  me  luck,  old  man,  for  I'm  going  to  take  this 
little  girl  away  from  you,"  and  his  blue  eyes  looked  into 
Bill's  black  ones  with  a  steady  and  disconcerting  gaze. 

"I  guess  we've  got  something  to  say  about  that," 
said  Bill,  putting  his  glass  down  suddenly. 

"Not  much.  You  see,  I'm  going  to  give  you  a 
thousand  dollars  and  that  will  be  your  meal  ticket 
until  you  find  a  new  prima  donna." 

"You  made  a  mistake,"  said  Bill,  "you  meant 
$5,000." 

"I  agree  with  you ;  I  did  make  a  mistake ;  it's  $2,500, 
and  you'd  better  grab  it  quick,  because  it's  easy  money 
and  it's  the  limit,  too." 

The  girl  was  playing  with  the  ring,  turning  it 
around  her  finger  aimlessly,  never  once  looking  and 


56  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

saving  no  word.  Bill  drained  his  glass,  put  it  down, 
and  then  looked  at  the  stage. 

"Do  I  get  it  now  ?"  he  asked  abruptly. 

"Yes,  now." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  palm  upward,  with  a  sug- 
gestive movement,  and  in  just  fifteen  seconds  it  held 
an  order  on  the  Assay  Office  for  the  amount.  It  was 
as  easy  as  going  into  a  store  and  buying  a  blue  flan- 
nel shirt.  Thirty  days  later — a  record  for  speed,  by 
the  way — the  girl  opened  in  San  Francisco  as  the  star 
in  a  farce  comedy  on  which  ten  thousand  dollars  had 
been  spent  before  the  curtain  went  up.  She  had  tal- 
ent, but  not  enough  to  make  good,  and  after  a  week's 
losing  run  the  play  was  shelved.  She  gained  a  lot  of 
experience  and  had  a  suite  of  rooms  at  the  best  hotel 
in  town,  which  was  something  for  a  girl  who  had 
previously  been  housed  in  an  eight  by  ten.  That  was 
what  gave  her  a  running  jump  into  the  profession,  so 
to  speak.  She  landed  on  both  feet  now,  but  none  of 
her  friends  would  dare  bring  up  the  subject  of  the 
glorious  West  to  her. 

That  were  best  forgotten. 


<^*5&eg^^^^ 


WHEN  FISTS  WERE  TRUMPS 

There  was  no  reason  why  they  should  have  called 
the  play  "The  Casino  Girls"  except  that  it  might 
have  sounded  attractive  to  the  out-of-town  people, 
and  the  word  Casino,  in  the  mind  of  the  average 
manager,  is  always  good  for  the  money.  But  it 
was  a  good  show,  nevertheless,  with  lots  of  nice 
girls  in  tights  and  spangles,  and  you  could  spend 
two  hours  there  about  as  well  as  you  could  anywhere. 

But  this  isn't  to  be  a  story  about  a  show  in  general, 
nor  is  it  written  with  the  object  of  handing  a  bouquet 
to  the  estimable  gentleman  who  had  the  "Casino 
Girls"  under  his  wing.  He  had  troubles  of  his  own, 
but  he  was  paid  for  that.  If  some  one  would  sit  down 
beside  me  for  an  hour  or  so — that  is,  some  one  who 
knew — and  tell  me  nice  little  stories  about  all  of  the 
girls — or  shall  I  say  ladies? — with  that  show,  I  am 
quite  sure  I  would  have  enough  material  to  last  me 
for  a  good  many  weeks  to  come,  and  it  wouldn't  be 
scandal,  either.  I  should  leave  that  for  the  religious 
papers  and  a  few  of  the  sanctimonious  dailies. 

But  it  happens  that  just  now  I  have  only  one  good 
card  up  my  sleeve,  so  I'll  play  that  for  all  it  is  worth, 
and  then  wait  for  something  else  to  leak  out  and  find 
its  way  to  the  mahogany  desk  where  I  do  stunts  like 
this  one. 

You  will  have  noticed  if  you  have  seen  the  show, 
one  of  the  young  women  who  is  a  bit  more  athletic 


58  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

than  the  others.  She  has  a  fist  that  can  hand  out  a 
scientific  punch  and  an  arm  to  back  it  up.  She  wears 
tights  with  the  rest  of  the  crowd  and  doesn't  attract 
special  attention  until  the  olio  is  put  on^  and  then  she 
shines  forth  as  a  specialist.  She  punches  the  bag  in  a 
manner  that  is  truly  marvelous,  and  what  she  doesn't 
do  to  that  pear-shaped  leather  pendant  couldn't  be 
done  by  anybody — man  or  woman. 

The  medals  dancing  on  her  chest  as  she  uppercuts 
and  swings  would  signify  that  she  is  an  artiste  of  more 
than  usual  merit,  and  the  self-assurance  and  confi- 
dence she  displays  during  the  brief  time  she  is  on 
show  that  she  is  quite  sure  of  herself  and  that  she 
knows  the  business  from  the  make-up  box  to  the  bow 
at  the  finish. 

Furthermore,  in  addition  to  her  other  accomplish- 
ments, she  has  been  known  to  kick  the  crown  of  a  hat 
held  six  feet  from  the  floor,  which,  by  the  way,  is  no 
mean  trick. 

Now  a  few  turns  of  the  leaves  of  the  calendar  back- 
ward, a  wiping  out  of  recent  years,  and  you  are  at 
the  beginning  of  the  story.  Not  in  New  York,  but 
in  Ohio — the  finish  is  in  the  big  city,  as  all  good 
finishes  are. 

A  good-looking,  rugged  girl  was  there  ;  a  normal  girl 
whose  only  heritage  was  health,  strength  and  ambi- 
tion, which,  by  the  way,  in  many  cases,  is  better  than 
money.  She  took  in  all  the  shows  that  came  to  town, 
and  had  about  as  good  a  time  as  any  other  girl  could 
have  under  the  circumstances.  She  didn't  get  stage 
struck.  She  had  no  ambition  to  sing  or  dance  before 
the  public,  nor  did  she  give  a  rap  about  Romeo  and 
Juliet.     Nothing  like  that  for  her. 


WHEN    FISTS    WERE     TRUMPS  59 

You  see  her  time  hadn't  come  and  she  had  not  yet 
struck  her  gait. 

The  first  intimation  she  had  that  she  was  stung 
with  the  theatrical  bee  when  she  saw  a  bag-punch- 
ing act  in  which  the  man  made  many  misses,  but 
faked  it  through  so  that  it  looked  like  the  real  thing. 

That  was  what  she  had  been  waiting  for  all  that 
time  and  she  never  knew  it.  The  next  day  she  bought 
a  bag,  had  a  platform  rigged  up  and  started  in  to 
practice.  She  worked  in  a  woodshed,  I  think  it  was, 
with  no  one  to  teach  her,  and  she  hammered  and 
punched  until  she  was  about  ready  to  drop  from  ex- 
haustion, but  she  never  gave  up.  She  would  travel 
anywhere  to  see  a  bag-punching  act  and  get  a  few 
tips,  and  although  there  were  not  many  in  the  business 
at  that  time,  especially  out  in  Ohio,  the  few  she  did 
land  told  her  all  they  knew  and  that  wasn't  half 
enough. 

She  had  reached  that  stage  when  she  was  fairly 
good,  but  didn't  know  it,  when  there  blew  into  the 
town  a  120-pound  boxer  of  about  the  fourth  class  who 
could  pound  the  leather  just  enough  to  get  a  salary 
that  would  pay  his  board  and  buy  a  few  drinks,  but 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  bag  puncher  was  enough  for 
her,  so  she  made  his  acquaintance  and  hustled  him 
around  to  her  improvised  gymnasium  to  show  her 
what  he  knew.  To  her  surprise  there  was  nothing 
in  his  routine  that  she  wasn't  familiar  with,  and  when 
she  went  at  the  bag  herself  she  did  a  few  stunts  that 
made  him  open  his  eyes  in  amazement. 

"Who  put  you  next  to  that  ?"  he  asked. 

"No  one ;  I  learned  it  myself." 


MMi'i'M 


h 


m^M, 


She  has  been  known  to  kick  the  crown  of  a  hat  held  six  feet  from  the  floor 


WHEN    FISTS    WERE    TRUMPS  61 

"Ever  do  an  act  ?"  was  the  next  question  he  shot  at 
her. 

He  had  a  quick  mind — anybody  has  who  knocks 
around  on  the  road  for  a  few  seasons — and  he  was 
already  beginning  to  figure. 

"No,  but  some  day  when  I  get  good  I  am  going 
to  ask  some  kind  manager  to  give  me  a  chance." 

"You  don't  have  to  wait  any  longer,  Sis ;  you  can 
come  with  the  show  right  away  and  we'll  do  an  act 
together." 

Here  was  a  meal  ticket  that  would  be  good  for 
many  a  hard  winter  when  the  other  fellows  were 
eating  snowballs,  and,  if  he  could  help  it,  it  wasn't 
going  to  get  away  from  him. 

And  that  is  the  beginning  of  the  story. 

It  didn't  get  away  from  him,  for  he  married  her  as 
soon  as  he  could  find  the  money  to  pay  a  minister, 
and  that  didn't  take  very  long. 

He  fixed  up  an  act  which  might  have  been  better, 
but  which  was  good  enough  to  get  wonc  with  reason- 
able regularity.  There  was  only  one  thing  to  it  and 
that  was  her  bag  punching,  and  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
his  hustling  around  and  getting  dates  he  would  have 
been  a  rank  case  of  excess  baggage.  In  the  meantime, 
he  was  teaching  her  how  to  box,  and  when  the  act 
grew  stale  they  had  a  boxing  finish  that  never  failed 
to  go  big  with  the  crowd. 

All  this  time  she  was  learning.  She  hunted  up 
every  bag  puncher  of  note  in  the  country  and 
gathered  in  the  tips,  and  when  she  wasn't  busy  with 
anything  else  she  was  framing  up  something  new  for 
herself.     All  this  tended  to  give  her  a  muscular  de- 


62  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

velopment  that  was  worth  having  and  that  many 
an  athlete  would  have  been  proud  of. 

Her  reputation  was  on  the  increase  and  she  began  to 
be  known.  The  first  step  had  been  made,  and  it  be- 
came a  comparatively  easy  thing  to  get  booking  in 
Europe.  The  skate  she  was  tied  to  began  to  swell 
up  a  bit,  and  during  the  seven  days  they  were  on  the 
ship  bound  for  Liverpool  he  got  it  into  his  head  that 
he  was  the  real  one  and  that  she  was  a  side  issue. 

"Don't  ever  forget/'  he  said  to  her  when  they 
reached  London,  "that  I  am  the  real  fellow.  I  dug 
you  out  of  a  woodshed  and  put  you  where  you  are 
now  and  if  you  try  to  get  gay  with  me,  I'll  send  you 
back  there,  and  I'll  get  another  one  just  as  good  as 
you  are." 

He  thought  he  was  the  real  candy  boy,  and  he 
started  in  to  cut  a  wide  swath.  He  chased  every 
petticoat  that  came  along,  blew  in  their  joint  salary 
at  the  cafes,  and  the  only  time  she  saw  him  was  when 
they  were  doing  their  act. 

In  Berlin  she  happened  to  walk  in  the  cafe  con- 
nected with  the  music  hall  at  which  they  were  work- 
ing, and  she  saw  him  sitting  at  one  of  the  tables  try- 
ing to  fill  a  160-pound  blonde  with  Rhine  wine. 

"Don't  you  think  it  is  about  time  to  cut  this  out?" 
she  asked. 

"Didn't  I  tell  you  to  keep  away  from  me  and  not 
butt  in  where  you're  not  wanted  ?"  he  said. 

"Yes;  but  I  think  I  have  something  to  say.  I'm 
not  a  wooden  image,  am  I  ?" 

"Who  is  this  woman?"  asked  the  blonde,  languidly. 

"I'm  his  wife,  if  you  want  to  know,"  was  the  retort, 


WHEN    FISTS    WERE     TRUMPS  63 

"and  anyone  would  think  you  had  no  home  by  the 
way  you  hang  around  here." 

"Tell  her  to  go  away;  she  annoys  me." 

That  was  enough  for  the  girl.  With  one  swift  jerk 
the  blonde  was  pulled  to  her  feet,  then  a  vicious  right 
hook  found  its  way  to  her  jaw,  and  as  she  dropped  to 
the  floor  the  "meal  ticket"  walked  away. 

It  was  the  first  blow  she  had  ever  struck  except  in 
a  friendly  contest  with  the  gloves,  and  it  stirred  her 
blood  as  nothing  else  had  ever  done. 

It  did  another  thing — it  set  her  to  thinking,  and 
from  that?  time  on  she  began  a  course  of  good,  hard 
training. 

Something  definite  and  tangible  had  become  estab- 
lished in  her  mind  and  she  was  after  it  like  a  hound 
after  a  rabbit.  She  paid  as  little  attention  to  him  as 
if  he  had  never  existed,  and  he  carried  on  his  love  af- 
fairs— very  numerous  ones  they  were,  too — with  a  free 
hand.  He  became  a  hot  proposition,  and  he  blew  like 
a  drunken  sailor  on  every  girl  who  caught  his  fancy. 
She  lived  like  an  automaton,  doing  everything  mechan- 
ically except  the  conditioning  work  she  was  engaged  in. 
At  every  show  they  boxed  together,  and  once  in  a 
while,  when  she  would  get  a  chance,  she  would  whip 
in  a  hard  one  in  order  to  lay  bare  his  weak  spots. 
One  night  she  hit  him  in  the  stomach.  It  was  a  short, 
sharp,  snappy  punch,  and  she  felt  the  shock  of  it  up 
to  her  elbow. 

He  turned  white  under  his  grease  paint  and  then 
wobbled  back  a  couple  of  paces. 

When  they  came  together  again  he  whispered  sav- 
agely : 


64  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Cut  those  out  or  I'll  hand  you  one  the  next  time." 

■"It  was  a  slip,"  she  said.     "I  didn't  mean  it." 

"It's  a  good  thing  for  you  that  you  didn't,"  he  an- 
swered, surlily. 

From  Berlin  they  went  to  the  Casino,  in  Paris,  and 
if  the  trick  that  was  pulled  off  there  had  never  hap- 
pened I  wouldn't  be  writing  this  story. 

Paris  to  him  was  like  a  bone  to  a  hungry  dog  and  he 
was  a  hot  sport  from  the  night  they  hit  the  town, 
while  she  was  a  joke  because  she  wouldn't  mix  with 
the  bunch  and  play  the  game  of  love  on  her  own  hook. 

But  all  the  time  she  was  getting  ready  for  the 
stunt  that  was  to  give  her  revenge  and  freedom  to- 
gether. 

At  last  it  came. 

When  he  stumbled  into  the  dressing  room  one 
night  he  had  the  beginnings  of  a  good-sized  jag.  He 
had  been  putting  away  his  share  of  absinthe  and  he 
began  to  abuse  her. 

"You're  a  dead  one,"  he  said,  "and  I  don't  know 
what  I  ever  saw  in  you.  Here  I've  put  you  on  your 
feet  and  give  you  the  chance  of  your  life  to  make 
good,  but  you  don't  connect.  Get  in  with  the  crowd 
and  be  a  live  one  before  it's  too  late,  for  you're  getting 
to  be  a  shine." 

"What  do  you  expect  me  to  do  when  you  are  mixed 
up  with  a  bunch  of  cheap  soubrettes,  and  drunk  half 
the  time?" 

"Why,  do  the  same  as  I  do,  of  course.  There's  that 
guy  that  came  in  last  night  and  wanted  to  meet  you. 
He's  got  all  kinds  of  coin,  and " 

"Shut  up,"  she  cried,  "what  do  you  think  I  am?" 

"Not  much." 


WHEN    FISTS    WERE    TRUMPS  65 

She  began  working  at  her  gloves  viciously,  pushing 
the  padding  away  from  the  knuckles  so  as  to  leave  the 
fist  with  as  little  covering  as  possible.  You  know  the 
trick  if  you've  ever  seen  boxers  just  before  a  contest. 
It  isn't  considered  the  right  thing  to  do,  but  when 
done  properly  makes  a  punch  well  landed  about  twice 
as  effective.  When  she  was  through  there  wasn't 
much  hair  in  the  centre  of  her  gloves,  and  then  they 
were  ready  to  go  on.  They  sang  their  opening  song, 
juggled  the  Indian  clubs,  after  which  she  went  at  the 
bag.  That  concluded,  they  were  to  go  three  rounds 
to  a  quick  finish. 

They  were  ready. 

He  went  forward  to  the  footlights  to  make  the 
usual  announcement. 

"My  partner  and  myself  will  now  box  three  exhibi- 
tion rounds,"  etc.,  etc. 

"Time." 

When  a  man  has  been  sparring  exhibition  rounds 
very  long  he  is  apt  to  grow  a  trifle  careless,  and  to 
take  chances  that  he  wouldn't  take  under  ordinary 
circumstances.  It  was  so  in  this  case,  and  at  the  first 
rush  he  got  a  stiff,  straight  left  in  the  mouth  that 
brought  the  blood  oozing  from  between  his  lips. 

"What  the  hell,"  he  began  in  amazement,  but  he 
didn't  finish,  for  she  was  on  him  in  an  instant  and  a 
short  right  went  home  to  his  ribs.  He  caught  a  look 
in  her  eyes  that  suddenly  sobered  him,  and  he  began 
to  stall  and  cover  up.  He  retreated  a  few  steps,  and 
she  said  tauntingly : 

"What's  the  matter,  are  you  afraid  of  me,  you  cur?" 

He  wavered  for  a  moment  and  then  she  went  after 
him  again. 


66  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

He  swung  his  right  with  all  his  might  and  caught 
her  on  the  ear.  Somewhere  from  out  of  the  audience 
there  came  a  sibilant  hiss  which  was  taken  up  by  a 
hundred  at  once.  She  needed  that  punch  just  about 
that  time,  and  it  spurred  her  on,  even  though  it  hurt 
for  a  moment.  She  bored  in,  and  throwing  down 
her  guard  drove  a  right  and  left  to  his  stomach — his 
weak  spot.  There  was  the  place,  but  she  had  for- 
gotten it  in  the  excitement. 

He  dropped  heavily  and  awkwardly  on  his  back, 
rolled  over  slowly  and  pulled  himself  to  his  feet.  He 
came  up  with  a  realizing  sense  that  he  must  protect 
himself  against  this  woman  who  was  taking  an  unfair 
advantage  of  him,  and  in  his  ears  rang  the  shouts  and 
applause  of  a  delighted  audience.  He  knew  they  were 
not  for  him,  but  he  would  fight,  anyhow,  and  show 
them  what  he  could  do.  They  were  to  see  that  an 
American  boxer  was  no  slouch.  He  saw  her  standing 
there  waiting,  with  a  grim  smile  on  her  compressed 
lips  and  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  knock 
that  smile  off.  He  straightened  up  and  went  at  her 
like  a  bull.  She  didn't  back  off  as  he  thought  she 
would,  and  when  he  pulled  back  his  right  he  got  a 
jolt  on  the  jaw  that  turned  him  half  way  around.  He 
went  in  again  and  she  hit  him  in  the  stomach.  When 
his  head  dropped  his  nose  met  an  uppercut  that  made 
the  blood  spurt  in  a  stream.  The  sight  seemed  to 
madden  her  and  she  went  at  him  fiercely  and  vindic- 
tively. There  was  revenge  behind  every  blow  and  she 
felt  that  she  was  evening  up  the  insults  and  humilia- 
tion of  a  year.  He  was  groggy  and  almost  helpless 
and  there  was  pandemonium  in  the  audience.  Some 
of  the  women  had  gone  out,  but  those  who  had  stayed 


WHEN    FISTS    WERE     TRUMPS  67 

had  risen  in  their  seats  and  were  cheering  on  this 
American  girl  who  was  fighting  like  a  man.  She 
heard  nothing  and  saw  only  the  man  she  loathed  and 
hated.  She  noted  his  puffed  and  bleeding  face  and 
knew  she  had  him. 

"Put  up  your  hands,"  she  said  sharply. 

He  obeyed  mechanically  and  she  walked  over  to 
him.  He  tried  to  cover  up,  but  she  feinted  him  into 
an  opening,  and  then  drove  a  straight  right  to  his 
jaw  and  he  flopped  over  in  the  wings  crying: 

"I  quit,  I  quit;  I  didn't  think  you'd  do  this." 

She  didn't  even  look  at  him  as  she  went  past  to  her 
dressing  room. 

Ten  minutes  later  he  came  in  with  a  trace  of  his 
former  bluster. 

"What  are  you  trying  to  do,  anyhow?"  he  began, 
but  she  shut  him  up. 

"I'll  lick  you  again  right  here  if  you  don't  keep  your 
mouth  closed.  From  now  on  until  the  end  of  this  en- 
gagement I'm  running  this  act,  and  I'm  going  to 
collect  the  money  for  it,  too,  and  any  time  I  catch  you 
doing  anything  I  don't  like  I'm  going  to  beat  your 
head  off.  Any  time  you  think  I  can't  do  it  start  some- 
thing. In  just  two  weeks  more  you  can  pack  your 
clothes  and  shift  for  yourself,  for  I'm  done." 

That's  all. 

She  has  been  shifting  for  herself  e\er  since,  and  is 
doing  pretty  well,  thank  you. 


Rackets  where  pretty  girls  cut  capers  to  the  music  of  male  voices 


KID  AND  HIS  TEN  THOUSAND 

Just  another  restaurant  scene  with  waiters  and 
guests  and  steaming  dishes  and  wine. 

It's  the  same  old  thing,  repeated  many  times  a  day, 
but  it's  like  a  stage  on  which  a  thousand  plays  have 
appeared.  The  setting  is  always  the  same — it's  only 
the  scene  that  changes. 

I  just  want  to  call  your  attention  to  that  red-cheeked 
boy  at  the  table  over  by  the  window.  I  said  b'oy, 
although  from  the  standpoint  of  years  he  is  really 
a  man.  But  he  lacks  experience  to  bring  him  to  a 
man's  real  estate.  Years,  you  know,  don't  always 
count  in  this  world,  that  is,  not  in  all  things.  In  this 
woman  is  excepted,  because  years  count  for  every- 
thing with  her. 

This  particular  boy  has  just  had  his  first  experience, 
and  that  is  the  excuse  for  this  story — if  an  excuse  is 
needed.  He  has  laid  the  foundation  stone  upon  which 
he  is  going  to  build  his  life,  and  in  the  building  he  will 
use  many  stones  of  many  colors,  sizes  and  shapes. 

You  see  him  sitting  there  disconsolate,  miserable  and 
wretched.  His  home,  as  luxurious  a  one  as  anybody 
would  want,  is  not  more  than  a  dozen  blocks  away, 
and  he  will  wind  up  there  in  the  course  of  the  next 
forty-eight  hours,  for  he  is  practically  broke. 

I  call  him  The  Boy  With  The  Ten  Thousand  Dollar 
Bill. 


70  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Just  a  few  years  ago  his  father  died.  A  few  weeks 
later  the  family  lawyer  was  in  the  drawing  room  read- 
ing the  will  of  the  deceased,  and  near  the  end  of  the 
document  he  came  to  a  clause  which  stipulated : 

"On  his  twenty-first  birthday  my  son  shall  receive 
from  the  balance  of  moneys  unexpended  a  bill  of  the 
denomination  of  $10,000  to  do  with  as  he  shall  see  fit, 
and  he  shall  not  be  asked  to  account  for  the  expendi- 
ture of  it  to  anyone  in  any  way  whatsoever." 

That  was  a  curious  item  for  even  a  curious  will,  but 
the  estate  was  big  and  the  founder  of  that  fortune  felt 
evidently  that  he  could  afford  to  experiment  with  a 
mere  ten  thousand,  even  after  his  death,  that  the  lesson 
might  be  of  benefit  to  the  heir. 

The  object  is  obvious. 

The  boy  became  of  age,  and  on  that  day  he  received 
the  bank  note  which  to  him  seemed  like  a  fortune,  so 
he  felt  that  he  owned  the  world. 

A  man  can  do  a  lot  of  good  in  New  York  with  that 
amount  of  money,  and  a  boy  can  do  a  lot  of  harm. 

This  boy  knew  in  advance  the  good  fortune  that  was 
coming  to  him,  and  in  looking  around  he  made  up  his 
mind  that  the  first  thing  a  man  of  his  means  should 
buy  would  be  an  automobile  costing  $4,000,  so  the  day 
he  got  the  money  he  bought  the  car,  and  he  received 
in  exchange  a  bundle  of  crisp  five  hundred  bills. 

He  must  have  thought  those  bills  represented  the 
wealth  of  Croesus,  or  that  they  were  magic,  and  no 
matter  how  many  he  might  use,  some  mysterious 
agency  would  replace  them. 

At  11.30  o'clock  that  night  the  new  automobile  was 
backed  up  against  the  stage  door  of  a  Broadway  play- 


KID    AND    HIS    TEN    THOUSAND  71 

house,  and  half  an  hour  later  it  was  rilled  with  as  many 
girls  as  could  possibly  be  crowded  in. 

In  that  startling  way  the  boy  with  the  big  bill  made 
his  debut  into  the  society  of  the  line.  He  gave  the  girls 
a  dinner  that  they  are  talking  of  yet,  and  before  two 
hours  had  gone  by  they  were  calling  him  pet  names 
and  incidentally  trying  to  get  a  line  on  the  actual  size 
of  his  bank  roll.  They  worked  individually,  and  each 
one  could  in  fancy  see  herself  installed  in  a  fine  house, 
mistress  of  unlimited  means  and  the  wife  of  an  especi- 
ally easy  mark,  made  to  order  for  a  chorus  girl. 

You  see  he  was  so  liberal  that  he  deceived  them,  al- 
though, as  a  matter  of  fact,  young  ladies  with  their 
wide  experience  ought  to  have  known  better,  and  have 
figured  out  the  limit  of  his  possibilities. 

These  ten  thousand  dollars  were  left  by  the  dead 
man  to  be  a  bait  for  the  wolves,  and  he  had  arranged  it 
so  that  the  hand  of  his  son  should  feed  it  to  them  bit 
by  bit.  There  were  other  thousands  behind  these 
and  they  were  to  be  protected  by  the  knowledge  of  the 
fate  of  the  ones  which  had  gone  before.  It  was  willed 
that  ten  thousand  dollars  of  experience  might  be 
bought  with  it,  and  the  boy  was  doing  his  share  of  it 
very  well.  He  left  his  home  and  took  a  nice  little 
apartment  so  that  he  could  have  more  liberty,  which  he 
needed  just  about  that  time.  He  lunched  with  a  sou- 
brette  and  dined  with  a  singer.  If  he  liked  a  show  or 
fancied  one  of  the  girls  in  it,  he  engaged  a  box  every 
night  for  the  week.  The  crowd  dubbed  him  The  Lit- 
tle Millionaire,  and  he  deserved  the  title,  for  he  was 
certainly  playing  the  star  part,  and  he  was  always  pres- 
ent at  what   are  known  as   rackets   where  the   chief 


72 


SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 


source  of  amusement  were  girls  who  cut  capers  and 
danced  to  the  music  of  male  voices. 

His  automobile,  which  always  carried  a  bunch  of 
freight  from  which  ribbons  and  feathers  fluttered,  de- 
noting the  sex  of  the  wearers,  of  course,  shot  up  and 
down  and  in  and  out  in  a  most  spectacular  manner, 
and  it,  as  much  as  anything  else,  helped  to  make  him 
popular. 

He  must  have  known  a  bit  about  finance,  for  it 
looked  to  those  who  were  watching  his  career  as  if 
he  was  spending  about  ten  thousand  a  week,  and  so 
he  got  the  reputation  of  doing — as  sometimes  happens 
in  this  world — that  which  was  impossible. 

But  through  it  all  he  never  showed  his  hand. 
He  was  dining  one  night  with  an  especially  nice  little 
girl  of  the  stage  to  whom  he  had  shown  a  lot  of  atten- 
tion— which    means    in    stage    parlance    that    he    had 
bought  her  presents  worth   accepting. 

They  had  come  to  the  third  bottle  of  wine,  and  to 
her  way  of  thinking,  the  time  seemed  about  ripe  for 
what  she  had  in  mind. 

"A  man  who's  been  in  the  business  a  long  time  was 
telling  me  the  other  night  that  I  ought  to  have  a  show 
of  my  own,"  she  mused,  as  she  sipped  her  wine. 

She  had  made  a  careful  and  skilful  cast  and  she 
waited. 

"Why  don't  you  ?"  he  asked  presently. 

That  was  quicker  action  than  she  had  dared  to  ex- 
pect. 

"I  ought  to  have  done  it  two  years  ago  when  I  had  a 
friend  that  wanted  to  start  me  out  on  the  road.  Don't 
you  think  I'm  as  good  as  Blanche  Bates?" 


KID    AND    HIS    TEN    THOUSAND  73 

"How  was  it  you  didn't  go?''  he  queried,  ignoring 
her  question. 

"Well,  you  see,  I  didn't  like  this  party,  and  I  wouldn't 
accept  favors  from  no  one  I  didn't  like.  It  don't 
cost  much  to  put  a  show  on  if  you  know  how,  and 
there's  a  lot  of  money  in  it  if  it's  a  hit." 

"About  how  much?" 

"Twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  dollars  would  do  it  up 
in  great  shape.  I  think  a  nice  little  comic  opera  would 
be  good.  The  kind  Lillian  Russell  has.  All  she 
makes  good  on  is  her  looks  and  that's  not  so  much. 
I  could  take  a  few  music  lessons  while  the  play  was 
being  fixed  up  and  it  wouldn't  be  long  before  I  could 
make  them  all  sit  up  and  look  me  over." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause  and  then  she  aimed  at 
the  bull's  eye: 

"What's  the  matter  with  you  backing  it?" 

"That's  what  I  was  just  thinking  about,"  was  the 
answer.  "I'll  look  into  it  and  if  it's  all  right  I'll  see 
my  broker  and  give  you  a  chance  to  see  what  you  can 
do  as   a   star." 

He  was  talking  like  an  old  timer  and  he  had  her 
going  in  a  minute.  But  that  was  only  one  of  his  jokes 
and  for  two  weeks  he  kept  it  up.  Then  he  told  her  of 
some  enormous  investments  he  had  made  which  had 
tied  him  up  temporarily,  while  she  had  to  go  around 
explaining  to  her  friends  that  it  was  all  off  about  what 
she  had  been  telling  them. 

There  was  one  proposition  this  gay  young  sport 
hadn't  figured  on,  for  all  going  out  and  nothing  com- 
ing in  makes  a  quick  and,  as  a  rule,  a  spectacular  fin- 
ish.    A  fellow  starts  out  like  a  three-time  winner  and 


74  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

comes  under  the  wire  with  nothing  but  a  bundle  of 
junk,  without  even  knowing  his  right  name. 

Two  months  of  the  three  had  gone  by  and  the  most 
remarkable  part  of  the  whole  affair  was  that  there  was 
any  money  left.  But  toward  the  latter  part  of  the 
game  he  had  been  growing  wise,  or  he  thought  he  was, 
at  any  rate.  He  stopped  the  five-dollar  tips  and  he  was 
cutting  out  a  night  here  and  there.  He  might  have 
retired  with  honors  if  he  hadn't  met  Blanche. 

Good-looking,  slick,  clever  Blanche,  the  regret  of 
whose  life  was  that  she  hadn't  met  him  first  and  got  it 
all  in  one  solid  chunk.  He  didn't  know  it,  but  he  was 
made  for  Blanche,  and  what  was  more  to  the  point, 
she  knew  it.  In  fact,  there  were  very  few  things  she 
didn't  know. 

His  talk  about  his  brokers  didn't  switch  her  in  the 
least.  There  had  been  a  time  in  her  life  when  she 
might  have  believed  it,  but  that  time  had  gone  by.  She 
had  lived  in  a  fool's  paradise  just  once  and  that  was 
enough  for  her. 

He  actually  wanted  to  marry  her,  but  she  wrouldn't 
consider  it  for  a  moment,  because  she  didn't  figure  him 
out  as  a  future  proposition  for  more  than  a  couple  of 
thousand  at  the  most. 

"You're  all  right,  Harry,"  she  said  once,  "but  we 
won't  have  any  marrying  just  now.  What  we  will  do 
is  go  shopping.  I  want  to  furnish  a  flat  so  I  can  really 
have  a  home  of  my  own  and  you  will  be  just  as  wel- 
come there  as  if  you  owned  it  yourself,  so  come  along 
and  we'll  pick  the  things  out.  You  have  very  nice 
taste  in  such  matters,  I  know,  and  we  can  have  a  good 
time  buying." 


KID    AND    HIS    TEN    THOUSAND  75 

Good  speech  that,  and  very  nicely  delivered,  and  he 
liked  her  well  enough  to  find  no  flaw  in  it.  But  when 
the  time  really  came  for  the  buying  there  was  some- 
thing else  she  had  to  do,  so  she  said : 

"Don't  you  bother  your  head  about  this;  just  give 
me  the  money ;  I  know  what  I  want ;  I  have  the  list  all 
made  out.  I'll  buy  them  and  fix  them  up  and  when 
everything  is  ready  I'll  have  you  come  up  and  look  at 
them  and  tell  me  what  you  think.  I  know  my  taste  is 
not  as  good  as  yours,  but  I'll  do  the  best  I  can." 

Please  bear  in  mind  that  he  was  only  a  boy — just 
twenty-one  years  old — then  you  will  understand  per- 
haps why  it  was  he  fell  for  so  old  a  story. 

At  this  point  you've  got  it  all  figured  out.  In  your 
opinion  she  took  the  coin  and  simply  faded  away. 

Nothing  of  the  kind. 

He  saw  her  once  every  twenty-four  hours  at  least 
and  she  reported  progress,  and  then  one  day  he  got  a 
note  telling  him  to  come  up  and  see  the  new  place. 

She  received  him  at  the  door  herself  and  if  the  little 
flat  had  been  a  palace  she  couldn't  have  been  more  de- 
lighted. It  was  so  very  fine  that  when  she  told  him 
she  had  gone  into  debt  just  a  little  bit  he  promptly 
asked  how  much  and  paid  up  without  even  so  much  as 
a  murmur.  It  was  so  easy  that  she  ought  to  have 
given  it  back  to  him  a  little  while  just  to  hold. 

When  he  went  away  he  had  a  latch  key  and  was 
about  as  proud  a  fellow  as  it  was  possible  to  be  and 
walk  straight. 

As  in  a  play  so  in  a  story — the  finish  is  everything. 

It  must  be  good  and  it  must  be  quick. 

The  earlier  parts  of  the  story  or  the  scenes  may  lag, 
but  nothing  like  that  will  do  at  the  end. 


76  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Blanche  had  been  on  the  stage,  and  consequently 
she  knew  the  value  of  "finis." 

He  was  to  go  on  a  hunting  trip  for  a  week,  and  in 
her  opinion  the  critical  moment  had  about  arrived. 
She  intuitively  divined  the  end  of  the  string.  One 
night  at  a  little  dinner  in  the  flat  she  talked  to  him 
about  money  matters,  and  such  was  the  charm  of  her 
manner  that  presently  he  was  telling  her  all  about  him- 
self, and  the  romance  of  the  ten  thousand  dollar  bill. 

"And  how  much  have  you  left  of  all  this?"  she 
asked  softly. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,  about  seven  or  eight  hundred." 

"Well,  I  think  you've  been  very,  very  foolish. 
You're  going  away  on  a  week's  trip  and  a  hundred 
really  ought  to  do  you.  Just  give  the  rest  to  me  and  I 
will  take  good  care  of  it  until  you  come  back,  and  then 
you  will  have  it.  You  want  to  be  careful  of  what  you 
have  now ;  you  are  altogether  too  liberal,  and  you  do 
too  much  for  people." 

That  was  the  reason  when  he  went  away  on  that  trip 
that  he  was  a  trifle  shy  financially,  and  so  far  to  the 
bad  that  he  had  to  borrow  to  get  back  in  good  shape. 

From  the  Grand  Central  station  he  took  a  cab  to  the 
flat.  It  seemed  as  though  he  couldn't  get  there  quick 
enough.  He  went  up  the  stairs  two  at  a  time.  He 
came  to  the  door. 

There  was  a  light,  dim,  but  still  a  light,  shining 
feebly  over  the  transom.  He  put  the  key  in  the  lock, 
turned  it,  opened  the  door  and  went  in.  He  took  four 
steps  in  the  private  hall.  Then  a  man's  arm  went 
around  his  neck  and  a  voice  asked : 

"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

He  had  nerve  and  he  wasn't  the  least  bit  flustered. 


KID    AND    HIS    TEN     THOUSAND  77 

"If  you'll  let  go  that  strangle  I'll  tell  you,"  he  said. 
"Where's  Blanche?" 

That  was  the  opening  for  the  story,  which  he  told 
very  well  under  the  circumstances. 

"She  never  owned  this  furniture,"  spoke  up  the 
man,  when  the  tale  had  been  concluded.  "This  flat  is 
rented  furnished.  She  left  here  about  a  week  ago,  and 
I  live  here  now." 

Now  we  get  the  curtain. 

He  has  finished  his  dinner,  and  he's  going  home. 
That's  the  best  place  anyhow.  What  right  has  a  boy 
like  that  to  be  on  Broadway  with  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars? 


He  often  made  an  honest  dollar  teaching  American  women  how  to  smoke  "hop" 


AN  ORIENTAL  NOCTURNE 

It's  just  one  little  step — in  New  York,  anyhow — ■ 
from  the  Caucasian  to  the  Oriental.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  it's  only  across  the  street,  and  that  doesn't  count 
for  any  distance  at  all.  The  Chinese  have  settled 
down  on  that  little  part  of  the  city  which  is  split  into 
wedge-shaped  blocks  by  Mott,  Pell  and  Doyers  streets, 
very  much  like  a  flock  of  birds  alight  on  some  tree, 
and  with  apparently  as  little  reason.  They  have 
brought  with  them  their  manners,  their  customs,  their 
habits  and  their  traditions.  They  have  imported  their 
own  gods,  and  even  the  furniture  for  the  joss  houses. 
They  have  introduced  to  American  men  and  women 
the  choices  of  their  Oriental  vices,  that  of  opium  smok- 
ing, and  they  have  provided  places  where  their  patrons 
may  enjoy  the  drug.  They  wash  your  shirts  and  iron 
your  collars ;  they  take  your  money  and  smile  at  you ; 
they  go  to  your  Sunday  schools  and  sing  hymns  in 
queer  cracked  voices  that  would  be  worth  big  money  to 
a  comedian,  and  they  profess  to  be  converted  to  your 
way  of  thinking,  but  they  are  smooth  and  wise. 

They  are  never  weaned  from  the  worship  of  Con- 
fucius or  Tao,  or  Buddha,  as  the  case  may  be,  but  don't 
you  see  when  a  Chinese  wants  to  learn  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people  with  whom  he  lives,  it  is  very  nice 
to  have  as  a  teacher  a  nice  looking  girl,  and  the  Eng- 
lish of  the  Bible  is  no  different  than  any  other  Eng- 
lish. So,  by  saying  he  has  foresworn  the  gods  and  the 


80  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

faith  of  his  fathers,  he  gets  his  education  directly  from 
the  red  lips  of  a  daughter  of  the  white  devils,  and 
sometimes  he  puts  on  the  finishing  touches  by  marry- 
ing her. 

Can  you  beat  it  ? 

Much  he  thinks  of  women,  for  in  that  Empire  from 
whence  he  comes  a  woman  is  a  chattel,  a  bit  of  mer- 
chandise, worth  so  much  in  money  or  goods,  as  the 
case  may  be,  and  he  buys  her  as  a  white  man  buys  a 
horse.  She  is  his  wife,  his  mistress,  or  his  servant, 
and   the  price   fluctuates    accordingly. 

When  Yen  Gow,  the  slickest  Oriental  that  ever 
cooked  a  pill,  hit  Mott  street  for  the  first  time,  he 
noticed  that  there  were  very  few  women  of  his  race  in 
the  colony,  and  being  a  man  who  made  money,  no 
matter  by  what  means,  he  considered  it  was  an  evil 
that  he  was  in  duty  bound  to  remedy.  He  had  a  varied 
career,  and  among  other  things  being  an  expert,  he 
had  taught  American  women  how  to  smoke  "hop." 

Incidentally,  it  is  pat  to  say  here  that  Yen  Gow  rep- 
resents a  man  and  not  a  dummy,  and  that  this  story 
is  absolutely  true  in  every  detail  and  is  very  far  re- 
moved from  fiction. 

If  you  haven't  what  you  want,  get  it,  is  a  maxim 
practiced  by  a  certain  class  of  people  in  all  countries  in 
the  world  whose  methods,  both  from  a  moral  as  well 
as  a  legal  standpoint,  are  not  considered  to  be  exactly 
right.  So  being  shy  one  female  of  his  own  blood  and 
color,  Yen  took  a  3,000  mile  ride  to  'Frisco  to  remedy 
the  defect.  No  one  knows  just  how  deep  he  had  to 
dig  for  that  slant-eyed  lady,  dressed  in  the  clothes  of  a 
boy,  whom  he  smuggled  into  the  top  floor  of  a  Mott 
street  tenement  one  night.     But  it  was  his  investment, 


AN    ORIENTAL    NOCTURNE  81 

and  he  spent  his  money  like  another  man  would  buy 
ground  or  buildings. 

He  fitted  the  room  up  with  couches  and  curtains  and . 
furniture,  but  first  of  all  he  fitted  a  good,  strong  lock  to 
the  door  that  couldn't  be  tampered  with  either  from 
the  inside  or  outside  unless  one  had  the  key.  There 
was  only  one  key  and  he  had  it.  When  you  buy  prop- 
erty that  has  feet  you  are  not  inclined  to  take  chances. 

Having  attended  to  all  of  the  details  that  he  con- 
sidered necessary,  and  frightened  the  lady  by  telling 
her  that  the  people  of  New  York  were  cannibals  who 
liked  nothing  better  than  Mongolian  flesh,  he  began  to 
do  business. 

He  first  lounged  into  the  fan-tan  joint  of  Hop  Lee 
on  Pell  street. 

"Have  you  ever  heard  of  Moy  Sen?"  he  asked. 

"Moy  Sen;  who  is  she?" 

"Who  is  she?  Were  you  born  yesterday?  There 
are  three  hundred  and  twenty  girls  in  'Frisco,  and  they 
are  as  little  like  Moy  Sen  as  the  earth  is  like  the  sun. 
Why,  the  viceroy  of  the  Shang-tuan  province  heard  of 
her  and  sent  an  envoy  with  nothing  to  do  but  look  at 
her  and  if  she  was  what  they  said  she  was,  to  bring 
her  back  even  if  it  cost  him  ten  thousand  taels." 

"Did  he  get  her?" 

"Can  a  child  get  a  rainbow  ?  She  heard  he  was  com- 
ing, so  she  dressed  in  the  clothes  of  a  working  boy  and 
ran  away  to  New  York."  He  stepped  a  little  closer 
and  whispered :  "She  is  here  now." 

Then  he  cunningly  told  his  story,  and  when  he  had 
finished  he  had  made  it  clearly  understood  for  what 
purpose  she  was  here,  and  added  further  that  being 


82  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

an  utter  stranger  she  had  placed  herself  under  his 
care. 

"Now,  if  you  care  to  see  her  I  will  take  you." 

Nothing  could  be  simpler — nor  plainer. 

In  figuring  up  his  profits — which  were  large — Yen 
Gow  got  into  the  habit  of  multiplying  them  by  two,  and 
then  mentally  cursing  himself  because  he  had  not 
bought  two  slaves  instead  of  one.  With  no  conscience 
and  no  morals,  he  was  a  thing  of  stone  whose  only 
thought  was  the  easy  acquirement  of  money.  If,  by 
cutting  off  a  finger  or  an  ear  from  his  chattel  he  could 
have  increased  her  value,  he  would  have  done  it  with 
as  little  compunction  as  lopping  off  a  chicken's  head. 

When  the  money  didn't  come  in  fast  enough  he 
took  to  beating  her,  and  it  wasn't  long  before  the  slim, 
brown  body  of  the  girl  began  to  take  on  bluish  spots 
where  the  knots  in  the  rope  had  struck  and  left  their 
imprint.  She  had  never  known  there  was  such  a  thing 
in  the  world  as  love,  but  she  began  to  hate  with  a 
fierceness  and  vindictiveness  that  any  woman  is  capa- 
ble of  when  she  has  been  wronged,  no  matter  of  what 
race  or  nationality  she  may  be. 

Revenge  follows  closely  on  the  heels  of  a  woman's 
hate,  and  it  is  always  deadly.  One  woman  can  hate 
another  woman  and  still  smile  on  her  as  if  she  was  the 
dearest  and  best  friend  in  the  world,  while  she  is  wait- 
ing to  let  go  her  poisoned  shaft.  But  she  has  no  smiles 
for  the  man  she  hates  any  more  than  a  cat  will  purr 
when  it  has  just  had  an  encounter  with  a  dog. 

Many  a  night  when  the  sightseeing  crowds  were 
going  through  Chinatown's  streets  the  girl  looked  at 
her  captor,  and  let  her  tapering  hand  slip  inside  the 
loose  fold  of  her  silk  blouse  until  it  caressed  the  jade 


AN    ORIENTAL    NOCTURNE  83 

handle  of  a  long,  thin  and  keen-edged  blade.  If  he 
had  known  how  lear  death  he  was  he  would  have  put 
his  back  against  the  wall  and  pulled  out  that  big  Amer- 
ican revolver  he  always  carried  in  his  sash.  But  not 
knowing  he  went  along  with  his  head  up  in  the  clouds. 

Because  her  heart  was  the  heart  of  a  woman  she 
stopped  feeling  for  the  knife  and  set  her  mind  on  other 
things,  such  as  any  caged  animal  would  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. It  was  finally  concentrated  on  the  key — 
that  slim  piece  of  metal  which  he  never  let  out  of  his 
keeping  day  or  night.  It  gave  her  courage  to  live  the 
life  she  was  leading,  and  the  thought  spurred  her  on, 
for  at  last  she  had  an  object. 

The  long,  lean,  gray  wolf  of  the  prairies  will  follow 
its  prey  for  days.  Hungry  and  thirsty  and  tired  it  will 
trail  like  a  shadow,  never  once  deviating  from  the 
heels  of  its  victim.  Through  snow,  and  rain,  and  sleet, 
and  wind,  surmounting  all  obstacles  it  will  stay  until 
the  end,  and  the  end  to  the  wolf  always  means  the 
feast. 

Somewhere  in  the  veins  of  this  Chinese  girl  there 
must  have  been  one  drop  of  wolf  blood,  for  once  she 
set  her  mind  upon  the  possession  of  that  key  she  never 
wavered.  It  was  before  her  night  and  day.  She 
planned  a  thousand  ways  to  get  it,  but  never  one  was 
right.  She  watched  him  with  furtive  eyes,  but  for  all 
the  good  it  did,  she  might  just  as  well  have  been 
looking  out  of  the  window  of  the  dreary  brick  wall  of 
the  other  building. 

Once  when  he  was  sleeping  she  crept  silently  to  his 
side  and  felt  for  the  inner  pocket  of  his  blouse.  Slight 
as  was  her  touch  he  must  have  felt  it,  for  he  moved 
uneasily  and  she  fluttered  to  the  floor  like  a  leaf  from  a 


84  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

falling  tree.     She  tried  again,  but  with  the  same  result. 

But  out  of  what  seems  certain  failure  often  comes 
success. 

"I  am  hungry ;  get  me  something  to  eat  quick,"  he 
demanded  when  he  awoke  in  the  morning. 

She  started  up  and  set  about  her  work  while  he 
walked  over  to  the  table  to  get  his  water  pipe.  As  she 
passed  back  and  forth  from  cupboard  to  stove  her 
glance  fell  upon  the  couch  where  he  had  slept,  and  for 
one  brief  moment  it  seemed  as  though  she  was  going 
to  fall.  A  sudden  weakness  came  into  her  knees  and 
it  was  with  a  great  effort  that  she  kept  from  crying 
out,  for  there  in  plain  view  was  the  key.  In  an  in- 
stant she  had  it,  and  she  had  taken  the  first  and  easiest 
step  to  freedom. 

He  smoked,  then  ate,  then  smoked  again,  but  this 
last  time  it  wasn't  tobacco  that  soothed  him — it  was 
opium,  and  when  at  last  his  drowsy  eyes  closed  she 
was  by  the  door  pushing  the  key  into  the  socket.  It 
turned  the  lock.  Then  she  opened  the  door,  passed 
out  and  locked  it  on  the  outside.  She  ran  down  the 
steps  as  if  she  was  pursued;  out  on  the  street,  when 
the  thought  of  those  white  devils — those  eaters  of  hu- 
man flesh — halted  her  in  terror.  But  no  one  spoke  to 
her  and  she  was  reassured.  Across  the  way  she  saw 
the  sign  of  a  temple,  and  she  made  for  it  as  a  ship- 
wrecked sailor  makes  for  land.  She  went  up  one  flight 
of  very  dark  and  very  dirty  stairs  and  then  saw  a  half- 
opened  door.  She  peeped  in.  The  room  was  empty, 
but  at  the  back  were  the  images  of  the  gods  she  knew 
in  China ;  before  them  was  the  shrine,  and  back  of 
them  was  the  sacred  place  where  no  one  dared  go. 


AN    ORIENTAL    NOCTURNE  85 

But  nothing  is  sacred  where  terror  is,  and  before  ten 
seconds  of  time  had  been  ticked  off  by  the  clock  on 
the  wall  she  was  nestling  at  the  heels  of  Kwon  Guet, 
the  God  of  Might,  the  safest  spot  in  all  the  quarter. 

If  you  will  notice  when  you  visit  a  Chinese  joss 
house  you  will  observe  that  there  is  nothing  thin  nor 
weak  about  the  keeper.  He  looks  like  a  man  who 
loves  the  good  things  of  life  and  gets  them,  too.  His 
life  is  one  of  ease  and  he  feasts  like  a  nabob.  When 
a  Chinese  wants  a  favor  from  a  joss  he  first  sends 
offerings  of  food.  These  are  put  in  fine  dishes  and 
placed  on  the  altar.  Then  he  prays,  and  begs  that  this 
feast  be  accepted  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  it  is  sent. 
He  may  believe  or  he  may  not  believe  that  that  thing 
of  wood  eats  what  he  has  left,  but  the  keeper  knows 
and  waxes  fat.  Many  a  time  has  he  smacked  his  lips 
over  a  sucking  pig,  roasted  to  a  turn,  and  chickens  are 
on  his  daily  bill  of  fare. 

Two  hours  after  the  girl  had  gone  through  the  open 
door  the  keeper  awoke.  He  yawned  and  then  stretched 
himself,  leisurely.  He  was  in  no  hurry,  for  he  knew 
there  was  a  breakfast  awaiting  for  him  on  the  altar, 
and  it  was  such  a  breakfast  as  a  man  of  his  distinction 
was  entitled  to.  He  knew  to  a  grain  of  rice  what  had 
been  put  there  the  night  before  just  as  he  had  known  it 
for  years. 

Presently  he  was  ready  and  he  sauntered  out  of  his 
little  room  with  no  unseemly  haste.  The  wick  in  the 
vessel  of  olive  oil  was  burning  with  a  steady  glow  and 
the  faces  of  the  gods  were  as  placid  and  emotionless  as 
the  day  they  left  the  carver's  shop  in  Pekin. 

"Ai  yd." 


86  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

He  rubbed  his  eyes  and  stepped  back  a  pace  in 
alarm. 

One  of  the  dishes  was  empty.  It  was  as  bare  and 
clean  as  the  palm  of  his  hand.  He  ran  back  to  the 
room  in  the  rear  and  roughly  woke  his  assistant. 

"You  have  eaten  before  me,  you  swine,"  he  shouted. 

"Eaten?"  queried  the  other.  "I  have  not  eaten 
since  yesterday." 

"Come  and  look  then."  Together  they  both  went, 
and  when  they  arrived  at  the  altar  another  dish  had 
been  taken. 

The  keeper  looked  up  at  the  stolid  countenance  of 
Kwon  Guet,  saw  a  shred  ot  the  white  meat  of  a  chick- 
en and  a  grain  of  rice  on  his  lower  lip,  and  then 
dropped  face  downward  on  the  floor  as  if  he  had  been 
shot. 

He  grovelled  in  abject  terror  while  the  assistant 
gazed  at  him  with  wondering  eyes,  until  he,  too,  looked 
up,  saw  the  same  sight,  and  then  he  went  down  beside 
his  master.  There  they  both  lay  until  combining  their 
courage,  they  crept  fearfully  backward  beyond  the 
range  of  the  vision  of  those  green  jade  eyes. 

"It  is  a  curse,"  whispered  the  keeper,  and  the  other 
nodded  his  head,  too  frightened  to  speak. 

That  was  only  the  beginning,  for  as  fast  as  the  offer- 
ings were  brought  they  disappeared,  and  nothing  was 
left  but  empty  dishes.  For  eight  days  this  continued, 
and  then,  on  the  night  of  that  day,  the  keeper,  grown 
bold,  found  the  desire  to  see  a  god  eat  growing  in  his 
heart.  So  when  the  lights  in  the  shops  had  gone  out 
and  the  noises  in  the  street  had  died  down  to  whispers, 
he  went  out  into  the  darkened  temple  and  sat  in  a  cor- 
ner with  his  back  against  the   wall.     The   flickenng 


,W    ORIENTAL    NOCTURNE  87 

lamps  burned  dimly  and  cast  long  shadows  across  the 
bare  floor  and  with  solitude  came  fear.  He  looked 
at  the  heaped-up  dishes  hungrily  and  then  at  the  joss, 
but  the  religion  of  his  ancestors  held  him  fast,  and 
what  might  have  been  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
block  of  wood  to  another  man  of  another  race  was 
something  to  him  that  was  endowed  with  the  power  to 
pardon  and  punish  or  even  cause  instant  death. 

Suddenly  there  came  to  him  a  noise  like  a  sigh,  long- 
drawn  out  and  deep,  and  as  he  shrunk  back  still  fur- 
ther in  his  corner  he  felt  the  blood  in  his  veins  run  cold. 
A  dish  moved  and  his  lower  jaw  dropped  as  though  he 
had  been  stricken  with  death.  Something  seemed  to 
wind  itself  about  that  bit  of  crockery  and  drag  it  slow- 
ly in  until  it  disappeared,  but  there  was  no  sound.  His 
breath  came  in  gasps  and  he  felt  as  if  he  would  choke. 
Then  he  saw  the  dish  replaced  with  the  food  gone. 
Those  same  unseen  hands  took  another  one  and  still 
another,  but  he  didn't  see,  for  he  had  sagged  down  in  a 
lifeless  heap  and  terror  had  numbed  his  senses.  As 
he  went  over  he  groaned  aloud,  and  there  was  a  sudden 
movement  back  of  the  altar  which  almost  caused  Kwon 
Guet  to  topple  over. 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  Chuck  Connors, 
with  his  hands  thrust  deep  in  his  trousers  pockets,  was 
walking  along  Mott  street,  homeward  bound,  when  a 
Chinese  girl  came  running  out  of  the  joss  house  door. 
So  great  was  her  speed  that  she  almost  collided  with 
him. 

"Ha,  there,  git  onto  yerself,"  said  Chuck,  putting 
up  his  hands  to  fend  off  an  imaginary  blow :  "wot  are 
yer  tryin'  ter  do — shoot  de  shoots  ?" 


88  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Velly  much  aflaid,"  said  the  girl,  looking  behind 
her. 

"Well,  wot  de  yer  t'ink  uv  dat,"  said  Chuck,  "Who's 
chasin'  yer,  anyhow?"  and  he  took  a  step  toward  the 
doorway. 

But  she  wouldn't  have  it  that  way,  and  taking  hold 
of  his  arm  she  almost  dragged  him  away  from  the 
place.  Chuck  knows  a  little  Chinese  and  a  lot  of  pid- 
gin-English, and  he  managed  to  get  some  kind  of  a 
story  out  of  the  girl,  and  then  he  took  her  home  and 
put  her  in  the  care  of  Mrs.  Chuck  until  the 
morning.  The  next  day  she  was  taken  to  a  mission 
house  in  Brooklyn,  where  she  stayed  until  one  night 
when  a  sporty  laundryman  smuggled  her  away  to 
Savannah,  Ga. 

The  joss-house  keeper  buys  his  grub  now,  and  he's 
looking  a  bit  thin.  Incidentally  he  pays  more  atten- 
tion to  the  temple  than  ever  before. 

So,  you  see,  good  comes  out  of  everything. 


A  COMMERCIAL  TRANSACTION 

The  turn  of  a  street  corner,  the  going  this  way  in- 
stead of  that,  the  casual  introduction  to  a  certain  wo- 
man, and  a  thousand  other  things  often  prove  the  turn- 
ing point  in  life,  sometimes  for  good  and  sometimes 
for  bad.  To  every  man  opportunity  comes  once  at 
least.  The  successful  ones  are  those  who  have  recog- 
nized their  chance  and  taken  prompt  advantage  of  it. 
But  anyone  can  preach  a  sermon,  and  money  doesn't 
always  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  education. 

That  will  do  for  a  starter  to  this  story  of  a  woman, 
a  dinner  and  two  men.  You  will  notice  that  the  woman 
comes  first,  the  dinner  next,  and  the  men  last,  which 
is  as  it  should  be.  Women  should  always  be  in  the 
lead,  which  fact  will  be  more  fully  recognized  when 
their  ability  and  genius  become  more  generally  under- 
stood and  appreciated. 

The  dinner  in  this  story  changed  the  current  of  three 
lives  so  abruptly  that  it  almost  became  a  tragedy,  and 
if  you  like  you  can  take  this  as  a  moral,  and  beware  of 
dinners,  unless,  of  course,  you  are  looking-  for  a 
change,  in  which  event  you  can  take  this  as  a  tip  and 
dine  with  the  crowd  early  and  often  and  see  what 
happens. 

The  son  of  a  wealthy  Eastern  brewer,  born  with  a 
gold  spoon  in  his  mouth,  and  taught  to  believe  that  the 
world  was  made  for  his  especial  benefit,  after  blazing 
his  way  along  the  White  Light  thoroughfare  for  a  few 


There  was  disclosed  the  figure  of  a  young  woman   rather  scantily  clad 


A     COMMERCIAL     TRANSACTION  91 

years,  and  making  a  name  for  himself  as  a  spender  of 
rare  ability,  took  it  suddenly  into  his  head  to  reform. 
A  good  many  hard  nights  had  brought  out  a  crop  of 
fine  wrinkles  at  the  corners  of  his  eyes,  and  high  living 
had  added  several  inches  to  his  waist  line.  But  he 
was  still  good  looking  and  ruddy  cheeked,  and  there 
were  a  number  of  charming  ladies  living  on  certain 
side  streets  who  knew  him  well  enough  to  call  him  by 
his  first  name,  and  who  were  always  glad  to  see  him 
whether  he  did  the  sucker  trick  of  opening  bad  wine  at 
$5  a  throw  or  not.  In  his  mind  the  first  step  toward 
reformation  meant  marriage  with  some  nice  respect- 
able young  woman  who  had  been  correctly  brought  up, 
and  whose  family  tree  would  bear  investigation,  and 
as  his  income  was  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of 
$30,000  it  wasn't  hard  to  find  what  he  wanted,  for 
ninety-nine  women  out  of  a  hundred  would  cheerfully 
fasten  themselves  to  a  monstrosity  if  there  was  a  bank 
book  in  the  inside  pocket. 

He  picked  out  the  girl  he  proposed  to  turn  from  a 
Miss  into  a  Mrs.,  paid  attention  to  her  for  thirty  days 
without  a  break,  then  he  proposed  and  was  accepted, 
and  the  date  of  the  marriage  was  set  for  two  months 
later.  It  was  a  case  of  thirty  and  sixty  days,  with  no 
discounts  off. 

It  is  usual  in  a  case  of  this  kind  to  give  a  farewell 
dinner  to  the  bunch,  to  have  one  last  good  drunk  and 
then  a  laborious  climb  aboard  the  water  wagon  until 
after  the  honeymoon.  So  he  hunted,  up  one  of  his  best 
friends  and  told  him  the  glad  news. 

"Never  again  for  me,"  he  said,  "and  all  the  Dotties 
and  Lotties  and  Totties  can  strike  my  name  off  their 
lists,  for  I'm  going  to  marry,  old  man,  and  settle  down 


92  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

to  business.  But  I'm  going  to  have  one  big  blaze  be- 
fore I  go,  and  I  want  you  to  get  it  up,  for  you  can  lay 
out  a  dinner  better  than  anyone  I  know,  and  besides, 
I'm  going  to  have  you  for  my  best  man  when  I  get 
hitched.  Now  go  as  far  as  you  like  and  damn  the  ex- 
pense. Have  a  stag  with  all  the  good  fellows  there 
that  we  know,  and  we'll  set  off  a  few  fireworks  that 
will  give  them  something  to  talk  about." 

The  banquet  room  of  a  big  hotel  was  engaged,  and 
the  French  chef  got  an  order  to  lay  out  a  spread  that 
would  make  an  old  Roman  feast  look  like  a  Bowery 
beef  stew.  Then  the  enterprising  best  man,  who  was 
something  of  a  high  roller  himself,  set  his  wits  to  work 
to  devise  a  novelty  that  would  top  anything  in  the  ban- 
quet line  ever  seen  in  New  York  after  the  lights  were 
turned  on.  About  fifty  invitations  went  out,  and  in 
response  to  them  on  one  eventful  Saturday  night,  half 
a  hundred  dyed-in-the-wool  sports,  of  the  kind  who 
buy  diamond  rings  for  little  ladies  who  dance  well,  set- 
tled themselves  in  very  comfortable  chairs,  and  pre- 
pared to  have  the  time  of  their  lives  and  wish  good 
luck  to  the  man  who  was  going  to  become  respectable. 
The  dinner  was  only  a  side  issue,  for  it  was  to  be  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  one  great  drunk,  and  that  was 
understood  from  the  start.  So  the  wine  flowed  as  free- 
ly as  water  in  the  spring  when  the  melting  snows  flood 
the  brooks  and  swell  the  rivers,  and  for  every  five  men 
there  was  one  waiter  to  see  that  no  one  went  thirsty. 
From  ten  until  twelve  the  black-jacketed  servitors 
drew  corks  and  filled  glasses,  and  then  the  best  man 
pulled  himself  to  his  feet,  propped  himself  between  the 
arm  of  his  chair  and  the  table  and  commanded  order 
that  he  might  be  heard. 


A     COMMERCIAL    TRANSACTION  93 

"There  is  a  pudding  coming,"  he  began,  "and  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  I  invented  it  myself  I  would  like 
to  have  you  fellows  sit  up  and  take  notice." 

Then  he  motioned  to  the  head  waiter  and  sank  back 
in  his  chair.  Five  men,  each  one  holding  up  his  end 
of  a  platform  about  four  feet  square  on  which  was  a 
monstrous  concoction  of  pastry,  staggered  in.  A  va- 
cant place  had  been  cleared  on  the  table,  and  when 
it  was  placed  in  position  a  yell  went  up  from  the 
crowd. 

"I'll  take  a  slice  off  the  top,"  sang  the  bridegroom, 
as  he  waved  a  glass  of  wine  aloft. 

"Cut  it,  Bill,"  said  the  best  man,  and  one  of  the 
waiters,  grinning,  went  at  it  with  a  huge  carving  knife. 
He  slit  it  from  top  to  bottom  in  two  places,  and  as  the 
crust  crumbled  away  half  a  dozen  birds  fluttered  out, 
and  when  the  pastry  cook's  creation  was  demolished 
there  was  disclosed  a  young  woman  rather  scantily 
draped  and  with  a  figure  worth  missing  a  train  for. 

"Good  evening,  gentlemen,"  she  said,  smiling,  and 
then  she  stepped  out. 

People  who  make  a  study  of  such  things  will  tell  you 
for  every  man  in  the  world  there  is  just  one  woman 
who  belongs  to  him.  They  may  be  thousands  of  miles 
apart,  and  it  may  so  happen  that  they  will  never  meet, 
but  the  fact  remains  that  they  were  intended  for  each 
other  just  the  same.  He  may  marry  and  she  may 
marry,  but  there  will  be  no  real,  true  happiness  until 
they  live  their  lives  together.  When  this  girl,  trim 
and  slim  but  shapely,  stood  on  the  table,  the  man  who 
was  going  to  be  married  looked  on  her  and  knew  then 
that  there  was  no  other  woman  in  the  world  for  him — 
not  even  the  one  whom  he  had  promised  to  marry. 


94  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

The  others  stood  up  and  cheered  and  applauded  her, 
while  he  sat  there  staring  almost  stupidly.  Her  bronze 
hair  tumbled  down  over  her  bare  shoulders  and  her 
laughing  eyes  took  in  the  scene. 

"And  who  is  the  one  who  is  going  to  be  married?" 
she  asked  smilingly.     "I  want  to  drink  with  him." 

"Get  on  your  pins,  old  man,  and  drink  with  the 
lady,"  called  one,  and  he  obediently  arose  and  held  a 
glass  of  wine  toward  her. 

"So  you  are  the  one?"  she  asked,  looking  him  over 
critically.  "Well,  here  is  that  the  woman  you  marry 
is  as  good  a  fellow  as  you  look  to  be." 

That  was  at  midnight. 

When  the  clock  struck  two  every  guest  was  still  in 
his  place,  and  seated  in  the  lap  of  the  man  at  the  head 
of  the  table — the  host,  the  man  who  was  to  marry, 
become  straightened  out,  and  shake  the  crowd — was 
the  girl.  He  had  one  arm  around  her,  and  they  were 
drinking  out  of  the  same  glass.  Of  course  it  wasn't  at 
all  proper,  but  you  see  everything  goes  at  a  bachelor's 
dinner,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  this  was  a  last  wild 
fling,  apparently,  it  was  all  right.  It  was  nobody's 
business,  anyhow,  for  a  man  may  do  as  he  likes  even 
if  he  is  on  the  verge  of  his  own  wedding. 

"You  will  surely  call,"  she  was  saying  between  sips. 

"Surely,"  was  the  answer,  "if  you  will  allow  me." 

"And  if  I  don't?" 

"Then  I  will  call  anyhow." 

"Now  you're  just  the  kind  of  a  man  I  like,"  she 
whispered.  "But  what  are  you  going  to  do  after 
you're  married?" 

"I  don't  think  I  will  marry,"  he  said;  "at  least  I'll 


A     COMMERCIAL     TRANSACTION  95 

not  marry  the  girl  I  intended.  You  and  I  are  going  to 
talk  that  over,  because "     - 

"Why,  I've  only  known  you  about  two  hours." 

"It  wouldn't  make  any  difference  if  you'd  only 
known  me  two  minutes,  it  would  be  just  the  same." 

"I  suppose  so,  but  you  see  a  good  many  men  have 
talked  to  me  like  that,  and  promised  me  everything, 
but  it's  always  the  same  in  the  end.  Men  say  things 
that  they  mean  at  the  time,  but  it  doesn't  last." 

He  was  really  in  earnest,  though  he  was  drunk,  and 
the  next  afternoon,  when  he  was  sober  enough  to  know 
what  he  was  doing,  he  wrote  a  note  to  his  fiancee,  tell- 
ing her  that  he  was  sorry,  but  it  was  all  off.  There 
were  reasons,  of  course,  but  he  couldn't  explain,  and 
would  she  kindly  release  him  from  his  engagement, 
which  had  been  entered  into  too  hastily,  etc.,  etc.  You 
know  the  old  story. 

In  the  end  he  got  his  freedom  in  a  tear-stained  letter, 
then  he  went  and  threw  a  high-ball  under  his  belt  and 
squared  away  for  the  pudding  girl. 

She  was  making  about  $40  a  week  and  living  at  the 
rate  of  about  $150,  it  didn't  take  a  wise  man  to  see  that, 
and  so  he  was  on  the  moment  he  looked  over  the  ranch. 
Rut  it  cut  no  figure  with  him  at  all,  for  he  was  too 
well  satisfied  to  be  bothered  about  a  trifle  like  that, 
especially  at  the  start  of  the  hunt,  so  he  took  things 
as  they  came  and  made  the  best  of  them. 

One  night  he  was  there,  and  they  had  become  confi- 
dential. 

"Who  did  it  all  ?"  he  asked,  as  he  waved  his  hand  to 
take  in  the  elaborate  furnishings  of  the  room. 

"So  you  have  reached  the  curious  stage  ?"  she  asked. 
"What  do  you  want  to  know  for  ?" 


96  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Because  I  think  so  well  of  you  that  I  want  to  do  all 
this  sort  of  thing  myself.    Who  did  it?" 

She  looked  thoughtfully  out  of  the  window  for  a 
moment,  and  then,  as  if  she  had  suddenly  made  up 
her  mind,  she  turned  and  said : 

"Would  it  make  any  difference  to  you  if  you  knew  ?" 

"Not  a  bit." 

"Not  even  if  it  was  someone  whom  you  knew  ?" 

"Not  even  then." 

When  she  told  him  the  name  it  was  that  of  his  best 
friend,  the  one  who  was  going  to  be  his  best  man  at  the 
wedding. 

Here  was  a  complication. 

Now  you  can  see  what  an  apparently  harmless  din- 
ner did. 

It  wasn't  very  long  ago,  so  it's  only  a  step  down  to 
the  present  day. 

The  Hungarian  gypsy  band  in  a  big  cafe  uptown 
was  playing  its  head  off,  and  every  table  was  occupied. 
Over  in  one  of  the  corners — a  choice  position,  by  the 
way — at  a  table  on  which  were  half  a  dozen  empty 
wine  bottles,  sat  two  men  and  a  woman.  If  you  will 
look  at  them  again  you  v.  ill  notice  that  their  faces  are 
very  familiar.  Yes,  that's  right,  it  is  the  pudding  girl, 
the  brewer's  son  and  the  man  who  was  going  to  be 
next  to  the  real  one  at  the  big  show  when  two  were 
made  one  and  the  minister  was  paid  double  for  work- 
ing overtime.  All  three  are  a  bit  unsteady,  naturally, 
for  the  soldiers  on  the  table  tell  the  story,  consequently 
they  are  well  primed  for  a  scene  of  this  kind. 

The  brewer's  son  is  talking  to  the  other  man,  and 
the  girl  is  playing  a  listening  part,  and  playing  it  well. 

"You  only  think  you  love,"  he  says,  "but  all  you 


A    COMMERCIAL    TRANSACTION  97 

have  done  is  to  spend  a  few  hundred  dollars — or  thou- 
sands, it  makes  no  difference.  You'd  spend  it  anyhow 
in  some  other  way.  I've  broken  off  my  marriage  for 
her,  and  that's  something.  You're  a  friend  of  mine 
and  why  don't  you  let  go?" 

"That's  all  right,  and  I  agree  to  what  you  say.  I 
haven't  the  money  I  once  had,  and  I  don't  think  I  can 
keep  the  pace  up  much  longer,  but  I  don't  want  to  see 
Maud  go  up  against  it.  She's  used  to  nice  things.  Sup- 
pose the  Governor  turns  on  you  and  cuts  you  off,  what 
are  you  going  to  do  then?  You  won't  have  any  more 
chance  than  I  have.  I  know  you're  all  right  now,  but 
Maud's  got  to  be  taken  care  of,  and  if  I  can  do  any- 
thing to  put  her  on  Easy  Street  I'll  do  it." 

He  reached  for  a  half  empty  bottle  and  refilled  his 
glass.  Ho  drank  slowly  and  when  he  had  finished  he 
went  on. 

"Have  you  got  as  much  as  $10,000?"  he  asked, 
abruptly. 

"Easy  that." 

"I  mean  ready  money?" 

"Yes,  ready  money." 

"Then  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do.  You  put  $10,000  in 
the  bank  in  Maud's  name  and  I'll  quit,  but  you  also  got 
to  promise  me  that  you  will  look  after  her  and  do 
everything  for  her  that  she  wants.  How  about  that, 
Maudie,  all  right?" 

As  he  spoke  he  patted  her  caressingly  on  the  shoulder 
while  the  brewer's  son,  flushed  to  the  roots  of  his  hair 
with  the  wine  he  had  drank,  dived  into  an  inside  pocket 
for  his  check  book. 

"Will  you  be  the  best  man,  Joe?" 


98  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Best  man  for  what?"  the  girl  spoke  for  the  first 
time. 

"For  our  wedding,  of  course." 

"Not  so  you  can  pay  any  particular  attention  to  it. 
You'll  have  to  chloroform  me  to  get  me  in  front  of  a 
minister.  I'm  no  Sunday-school  scholar,  and  no  man 
can  own  me.  I  believe  every  woman  should  be  inde- 
pendent, and  when  a  woman  marries  she  not  only  sac- 
rifices her  freedom,  but  herself.  I  like  you  both,  and 
I'm  glad  to  know  that  I'm  worth  $10,000  to  you,"  and 
she  nodded  toward  the  brewer's  son.  "For  that  I'll 
play  fair  with  you,  and  if  we  ever  agree  to  disagree 
we'll  do  it  like  two  good  fellows.  Joe,  don't  forget  to 
come  around  and  take  dinner  with  us  once  in  a  while, 
will  you  ?" 

P.  S. — A  story  in  a  daily  newspaper  published  later 
tells  about  the  son  of  a  wealthy  brewer  committing  sui- 
cide by  shooting,  in  his  home  in  a  town  near  New 
York.  The  cause  for  the  rash  act  is  not  known. 
Strange  that  it  should  be  the  man  who  was  going  to 
reform,  but  didn't,  isn't  it? 


THE  END  OF  THE  ROAD 

They  call  them  demi  mondaines  and  nymphs  du 
pave  in  Paris,  and  it  doesn't  sound  so  bad,  but  here  a 
spade  is  called  a  spade  with  coarse  brutality  and  vice 
doesn't  receive  even  a  very  thin  coating  of  veneer. 

Take  a  walk  any  night  along  the  streets  where 
women  congregate — you  know  the  kind  of  women  I 
mean — and  study  the  faces.  Look  for  weakness,  and 
strength,  and  character.  Look  for  good  and  evil. 
You  don't  have  to  be  a  mind  reader,  just  a  plain,  or- 
dinary, everyday  sort  of  a  man  with  average  intelli- 
gence. 

If  you  look  for  the  outward  signs  of  degradation  in 
the  uptown  districts  you'll  be  disappointed ;  you'll  have 
to  turn  your  face  and  your  steps  Batteryward  to 
find  that.  Vice  has  a  degrading  and  demoralizing  in- 
fluence and  its  victim,  in  following  that  unwritten  law 
of  nature  that  governs  the  universe,  is  ever  on  the 
downward  path.  In  some  cases  it  is  a  gentle  descent, 
while  in  others  it  is  simply  a  series  of  steps  each  one 
lower  than  the  other,  and  at  the  last  there  is  nothing 
but  pity  for  the  poor  devils  of  women  to  #whom  no 
man  lifts  his  hat  or  bows  his  head,  and  who  cease  to 
live   in  merely   existing. 

And  for  eight  out  of  every  ten  there  are  eight  men 
somewhere  whose  hands  gave  the  push  that  sent 
them  on  the  downhill  road. 

But  once  in  a  while — once  in  a  very  great  while — 


She  had  such  a  superb  figure  that  she  once  posed  for  a  sculptor 


THE    END    OF    THE    ROAD  ioi 

justice  comes  to  a  man  as  it  did  in  this  case,  and 
that's  the  story. 

Locked  up  securely  in  the  City  Prison  like  a  rat  is 
locked  in  a  trap,  or  a  dangerous  beast  is  fastened  be- 
hind iron  bars,  is  a  pretty  little  black-eyed  French 
girl. 

Julie,  her  name  is,  and  those  who  see  and  talk  to 
her  find  in  her  a  great  charm ;  a  charm,  that  had  she 
been  placed  in  a  different  atmosphere  or  had  the  lines 
of  her  life  been  cast  in  different  places,  would  have 
been  so  far-reaching  as  to  make  her  a  power.  She 
had  such  a  charming  figure  that  she  once  posed  for 
a  sculptor.  Many  a  woman's  hand  has  shaped  the 
course  of  destiny  in  this  world  of  ours,  and  the  power 
behind  the  throne  usually  wears  petticoats. 

This  Julie  takes  her  imprisonment  calmly,  because 
she  is  a,  philosopher  by  force  of  circumstances.  She 
knows  the  metal  bars  can  resist  her,  consequently  she 
doesn't  throw  herself  against  them  and  there  are  no 
tears  in  her  eyes  because  she  can  never  cry  again. 
She  doesn't  know  what  they  will  eventually  do  to  her 
and  she  doesn't  care.  If  it  is  decreed  that  she  shall 
go  forth  free,  good;  then  she  will  go.  If  it  is  de- 
creed that  for  the  rest  of  her  life  she  shall  be  doomed 
to  wear  that  narrow  blue  prison  stripe,  she  will  at 
least  be  fed  and  housed  and  cared  for,  and  on  rainy, 
stormy  days  she  will  be  under  shelter  and  not  com- 
pelled to  walk  the  streets  with  dripping  skirts  until  the 
gray  morning  comes  over  the  roof  tops. 

You  see,  she  has  the  comforting  creed  of  a  fatalist 
— that  what  is  to  be  will  be,  and  that  one  thought  is  to 
her  like  a  narcotic — she  sleeps  at  nights. 


102  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Because  of  that  she  doesn't  hear  the  moans  and  sobs 
of  the  woman  in  the  next  cell,  who  has  the  feathery 
crime  of  petit  larceny  hanging  over  her  head  instead 
of  murder.  A  mere  trifle  which  means  nothing  more 
than  a  few  weeks — or  months  at  the  most — in  jail.  A 
rest  like  the  going  away  from  the  hot  city  streets  when 
July  comes,  as  the  rich  people  do,  or  to  the  South 
when  winter  winds  blow.  A  place  where  the  ther- 
mometer always  registers  about  the  same  and  the  meals 
come  regularly,  which  is  not  a  thing  to  be  despised  by 
anyone,  much  less  a  woman  of  the  lower  half. 

If  the  life  of  this  Julie  were  to  be  told  year  by  year 
it  would  take  a  book  of  many  thousands  of  pages,  and 
the  pathos,  comedy  and  tragedy  would  be  about  evenly 
divided.  You  would  have  the  tale  of  how  she  once 
asked  a  man  if  he  had  change  of  a  $50  bill.  Then 
when  he  pulled  out  his  money  she  grabbed  the  roll, 
cried  out:  "Here  comes  the  police/'  and  dashed  into 
a  hallway  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  It  was  a  good 
joke  and  she  spent  the  proceeds  for  a  new  dress,  for 
she  was  of  the  kind  who  make  even  jokes  profitable. 

That  she  was  saved  from  arrest  many  times  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  she  stood  in  with  the  police,  and 
she  was  considered  to  be  one  of  the  most  successful 
stool  pigeons  in  the  business.  She  was  born  with 
the  instinct  of  the  hunter,  and  hunter  she  was.  In 
her  own  inner  circle,  however,  she  was  known  as  The 
Slasher,   and   was   feared   accordingly. 

It  came  about  in  this  way. 

She  and  another  woman  of  the  streets  were  rivals 
in  many  ways.  When  they  first  met  they  took  an 
instinctive  dislike  to  each  other.  The  other  one  was 
a  blonde,  tall  and  stately — the  kind  you  read  about  in 


THE    END    OF    THE    ROAD  103 

cheap  novels.  She  was  an  English  girl,  and  when  it 
came  to  a  knockdown  and  drag-out  argument  she  was 
able  to  deliver  the  goods  in  fine  shape.  Their  first 
quarrel  was  over  nothing,  and  before  it  was  finished 
the  lady  with  the  golden  tresses  had  taken  her  French 
sister  by  the  shoulders  and  flung  her  down  an  area 
bruising  her  badly. 

The  Latin  blood  in  the  black-eyed  one  boiled, 
and  she  cried  out  for  revenge,  which  she  proceeded 
to  work  up  in  a  truly  Latin  manner.  She  made 
friends  with  her  former  enemy,  said  that  she  was  in 
the  wrong  and  was  sorry  for  what  had  happened,  arid 
that  she  wanted  to  be  forgiven.  The  blonde  fell  like 
a  farmer  before  Hungry  Joe,  and  they  both  went  off 
to  celebrate.  The  celebration  consisted  in  tucking 
away  many  cocktails  and  highballs,  and  inside  of  two 
hours  the  British  lady  was  a  sodden  wreck,  and  so 
helpless  that  she  had  to  be  carried  to  her  room  on 
the  second  floor  rear  of  a  house  of  no  reputation. 

Julie  stayed  with  her  long  enough  to  pull  out  a 
razor  and  cut  three  gashes  from  the  bridge  of  her 
nose  across  one  cheek.  Then  she  slipped  out  and  went 
on  her  way  as  though  nothing  had  ever  happened  to 
give  her  a  moment's  worry. 

That  little  stunt  put  the  blonde  out  of  business,  in 
that  section  of  the  city,  at  least.  It  is  said  she  went 
further  downtown,  where  there  is  less  of  a  premium 
on  beauty  and  style. 

Like  othen  women  of  her  caste  Julie  found  it  nec- 
essary to  have  a  protector,  and  when  she  first  appeared 
in  the  role  of  hunter  she  cast  about  for  one  who  would 
suit — one  who  would  fight  her  battles  and  upon  whom 


104  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

she  could  lavish  the  affection  that  was  not  bought,  or 
that  still  remained   unsold. 

Being  a  good  looking  girl,  educated  up  to  a  certain 
point,  and  with  pleasant  ways — the  kind  of  ways  a 
man  would  look  for  in  a  girl  if  he  was  selecting  a 
wife — she  had  no  trouble  in  attaching  to  herself  a 
young  fellow  who  was  a  good  mate  for  her.  She  let 
it  be  understood  at  the  start  that  he  was  to  belong  to 
her  and  that  he  was  to  be  at  her  beck  and  call.  She 
wanted  to  revel  in  the  joys  of  complete  ownership. 

He  was  willing  enough,  and  in  fact  it  rather  suited 
him,  because  he  came  into  immediate  possession  of  a 
wife,  a  home  and  income. 

It  is  to  be  supposed  there  was  some  affection  in  the 
case,  for  it  wasn't  a  cold  business  proposition.  It 
was  bad  enough,  even  from  the  best  side,  but  she 
liked  him  in  a  way — you  can  put  the  word  love  in  here 
if  you  like — but  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  her  feeling 
was  that  of  a  dog-like  devotion,  and  his  was  one  of 
knowing  a  good  thing  when  he  saw  it. 

But  she  was  jealous,  too. 

"If  I  see  you  speaking  to  any  of  the  other  girls," 
she  said  to  him  once,  "I  will  leave  you  right  away." 

That  was  in  the  early  stages,  and  now  notice  how  a 
woman's  affection  shifts. 

"If  you  flirt  with  any  of  those  girls  I  will  kill  my- 
self," she  said  six  months  later. 

First  she  would  leave  him  and  then  she  would  kill 
herself. 

That  brings  the  tragedy  to  the  last  stage. 

"I  will  kill  yon." 

There  are  no  peaceful  lives  cast  in  such  a  groove 
as  that. 


THE    END    OF    THE    ROAD  105 

He  began  to  grow  a  bit  tired  of  her,  even  though 
the  money  did  come  to  him  regularly.  You  see,  he 
had  no  occupation,  and  he  had  to  do  something  with 
his  time,  and  that  something  wasn't  good. 

Then  it  was  that  the  quarrels  began,  a  few  words 
at  first,  but  gradually  increasing  in  bitterness  until 
one  night  he  came  in  half  drunk  and  taking  her  by 
the  throat  almost  strangled  her.  She  said  afterward 
that  she  thought  she  was  gone,  because  red  lights 
danced  before  her  eyes. 

But  she  was  game  and  didn't  whimper,  not  even 
when  he  struck  her  in  the  face  with  his  clinched  fist 
and  threw  her  to  the  floor.  She  took  her  medicine 
gamely,  for  she  realized  intuitively  that  it  was  her 
medicine,  and  it  was  a  part  of  the  life  she  was  leading. 

The  strange  part  of  it  all  was  that  she  never  shed  a 
tear. 

Her  neck  hurt  her,  and  when  she  looked  in  the 
mirror  she  saw  the  marks  of  his  strong  fingers  and  in 
that  instant  she  was  a  changed  woman.  The  flicker- 
ing flame  of  her  affection  turned  to  a  steady  glow  of 
hate  and  from  that  moment  she  began  to  figure  on 
revenge.  She  stood  still  and  white  and  cold,  and 
every  tick  of  the  clock  on  the  mantel  was  a  stroke  of 
doom  for  him.  There  was  nothing  melodramatic 
about  her  at  this  stage  of  the  game,  for  her  street 
training  served  to  make  her  calm  at  times. 

Woman-like,  she  at  once  took  up  with  another 
champion  and  this  time  she  picked  out  a  man  who  was 
peculiarly  fitted  by  force  of  circumstances  to  help 
her.  He  was  to  be  not  so  much  a  companion  as  step- 
ping-stone, and  in  that  she  simply  followed  out  the 
natural  instinct  of  the  average  woman  who  purrs  and 


106  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

strikes  indiscriminately  and  who  makes  merchandise 
and  capital  of  her  favors. 

"He  beat  me,"  she  told  this  new  one  in  talking  of 
the  one  who  had  been  supplanted,  "and  I  want  you 
to  help  me  get  even." 

The  promise  was  made  on  this  tainted  honeymoon 
and  for  one  hour  every  night  they  went  out  to- 
gether looking  for  their  prey  in  all  of  the  places  where 
he  had  been  known  to  go. 

For  two  weeks  it  was  a  fruitless  search,  and  then 
the  news  came  to  her  in  an  indirect  way  that  he  had 
been  seen  in  the  old  haunts. 

The  good  pot-hunter  never  really  hunts — he  lures 
the  game  to  the  decoy — and  because  she  had  been  years 
upon  the  trail  she  at  once  corrected  her  first  mistake 
and  sent  a  letter  as  bait — a  tender  missive  full  of 
regrets  and  endearing  terms;  such  a  letter  as  only  a 
woman  could  write — a  letter  like  a  silken  bandage  to 
blind  the  eyes  and  shut  out  the  real  view  of  things. 

It  came  to  his  hand  as  she  had  expected  it  would, 
and  when  the  time  arrived  he  hurried  to  the  rendezvous 
to  heal  the  breach  and  once  more  place  himself  on 
friendly  terms  with  his  income. 

There  are  enough  facts  in  this  story  to  carry  it, 
but  it  is  not  an  absolutely  correct  recital.  There  are 
reasons  why  it  should  be  changed  and  so  I  have 
changed  it,  but  not  enough  to  destroy  its  identity. 

On  that  street  at  night,  with  people  hurrying  to  and 
fro,  they  came  face  to  face,  but  before  he  could  speak 
to  her,  the  other  man  stepped  out  and  seized  him. 

"Come  with  me,  I  want  you,"  he  said  roughly,  and 
he  wheeled  him  around  with  a  deft  movement.    There 


THE    END    OF    THE    ROAD  107 

was  no  other  word  spoken  and  only  for  an  instant 
was  there  a  brief  struggle. 

All  the  while  the  woman  had  been  fumbling  at  her 
bosom  before  she  drew  out  a  pistol. 

Her  time  had  arrived. 

She  levelled  it  at  the  retreating  back  of  the  held 
man  and  pulled  the  trigger.  A  child  couldn't  have 
missed  a  shot  like  that,  and  the  bullet  bored  into  his 
back,  throwing  him  forward  slightly. 

It  had  been  her  intention  to  shoot  but  once  and 
make  that  one  shot  do  the  work,  but  when  she  saw 
that  he  was  hit  the  lust  of  blood  came  on  her  and 
she  pulled  the  trigger  twice  more,  each  bullet  finding 
its  mark,  before  a  policeman  ran  up  and  threw  one 
arm  around  her  neck  and  with  the  free  hand  took  hold 
of  the  still  smoking  weapon.  It  was  the  old  trick  of 
the  force  taught  to  probationers  before  they  are  con- 
sidered fit  to  go  forth  and  guard  the  public  interests. 

While  her  victim  was  slipping  slowly  downward 
to  the  pavement  she  screamed,  with  as  clear  an  intona- 
tion as  if  she  wanted  to  be  sure  it  would  be  a  matter 
of  record : 

"And  now  he  will  never  beat  me  again/' 

Half  a  dozen  men  carried  the  limp  dead  body  into 
a  store  and  she  was  taken  there,  too,  and  such  was 
her  ferocity  that  she  tried  to  kick  the  corpse  of  her 
quarry. 

"He  beat  me,  he  beat  me,"  she  shouted,  "and  now 
he  will  never  beat  me  again.  If  I  had  not  killed  him 
he  would  have  killed  me." 


Disguised  as  a  sailor  boy  she  shipped  on  one  of  Uncle  Sam's  ships 


THE  THROWBACK 

One  of  the  greatest  schools  in  the  world  is  Little 
Old  New  York,  where  anyone  can  learn  anything  and 
anyone  can  do  anything — or  do  anybody  if  they  should 
happen  to  have  but  a  modicum  of  brains  and  native 
shrewdness. 

It  is  the  haunt  as  well  as  the  home  of  the  crook; 
the  respectable  trickster;  the  lady  who  works  and 
the  lady  who  doesn't.  The  amalgamation  of  many 
races  and  many  creeds  has  tended  to  produce  clever- 
ness and  wit  to  a  high  degree. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  financiers  comes  from 
Russian  peasant  blood  on  one  side  and  poverty-stricken 
French  on  the  other.  In  the  blood  of  a  Tenderloin 
queen  there  is  Irish  and  Spanish,  and  it  is  hard  to  tell 
which  side  has  contributed  the  most  beauty.  The  com- 
bination of  races  is  the  chrysalis — the  female  product 
is  the  moth. 

In  the  squalid  tenements  of  the  East  Side  there  is 
beauty  in  embryo  and  the  figures  of  Venus  are  barely 
hidden  by  cheap  calico  wrappers. 

Where  the  Poles  are  settled,  voluptuous  women  are 
wedded  to  weak,  undersized  men,  and  the  result  is 
either  very  good  or  very  bad,  according  to  the  domina- 
tion of  the  sex.  Very  beautiful  flowers  often  grow  and 
bloom  in  loathsome  places,  and  many  a  handsome 
woman  who  rides  in  state  along  the  avenue  wouldn't 
care  to  have  her  antecedents  known  to  the  world. 


no  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  pre-natal  influence,  and  a 
throwback,  taking"  on  the  good  or  bad  characteristics 
of  a  previous  generation,  is  an  accepted  fact. 

And  now  we  will  introduce  the  lady  as  she  sits  in 
the  courtroom,  smiling  as  though  she  hadn't  a  care  or 
responsibility  in  the  world.  She  has  the  innocent  face 
of  a  child  and  the  manner  of  a  cherub,  if  you  know 
what  that  is.  If  an  artist  were  to  paint  her  portrait  in 
one  of  her  moments  of  relaxation  he  might  be  justified 
if  he  called  it  "Innocence." 

"She's  a  peach,  all  right,"  remarks  a  court  officer, 
and  that  means  a  lot  when  it  comes  from  such  a  source. 

She  has  the  blonde  hair  and  the  fair  complexion  of 
the  Teuton,  and  the  black  eyes  of  the  Slav— a  rare 
combination,  if  you'll  take  my  word  for  it.  She's  coy, 
and  winning  and  demure,  but  with  a  brain  so  active 
that  nothing  to  her  is  impossible. 

Two  generations  ago  a  dashing,  handsome  young 
lieutenant  of  the  German  army  fell  in  love  with  a 
sloe-eyed  girl  who  had  been  born  of  Slav  blood. 

He  was  brilliant  but  discreditable. 

His  romances  and  intrigues  were  many,  and  his  ex- 
penses were  about  four  times  what  his  income  war- 
ranted. One  day  he  forged  a  check,  and  when  he 
skipped  over  the  border  to  escape  arrest  he  left  the 
woman  and  a  baby  girl  in  a  cheap  room  with  not 
enough  money  to  keep  them  a  week.  He  forgot  them 
as  utterly  as  if  they  had  never  existed,  so  in  the  course 
of  time  she  who  gave  up  honor  added  to  that  her  life. 

She  died  in  the  hospital  of  a  disease  that  is  not  men- 
tioned in  the  medical  books,  and  the  youngster  was 
shipped  to  a  charitable  institution.  At  the  age  of  nine- 
teen this  waif,  orphaned,  and  stolid  of  character,  with 


THE    THROWBACK  in 

not  even  good  looks  to  recommend  her,  had  by  dint  of 
hard  work  and  frugal  living,  saved  up  enough  money 
to  take  a  ship  for  America,  the  land  of  gold,  where 
fortunes  were  made  by  simply  wishing  for  them. 

Half  way  across  the  sea  she  came  to  the  notice  of  an 
Irish  sailor,  and  by  some  strange  turn  in  the  inexor- 
able wheel  of  fate,  they  fell  in  love  with  each  other; 
he  with  his  brogue,  and  she  with  knowledge  of  no  lan- 
guage except  that  of  the  Fatherland. 

Their  courtship  was  over  a  rugged  road,  but  it  came 
to  a  happy  conclusion,  for  before  the  ship  sailed  on  her 
return  voyage  they  were  married  with  the  aid  of  an 
obliging  minister  assisted  by  a  Castle  Garden  inter- 
preter, and  Connell — that  was  the  sailor's  name — was 
looking  for  a  job  alongshore. 

Two  scantily  furnished  rooms  was  the  best  they  ever 
knew,  and  in  those  two  rooms  the  wife  who  talked 
broken  English  with  a  Limerick  accent  died,  but  not 
until  she  had  left  a  blonde  baby  girl  with  the  fair  com- 
plexion of  that  dashing  lieutenant. 

As  she  grew  up,  the  public  school  gave  her  an  edu- 
cation, and  when  she  was  old  enough  she  got  work  in 
an  office.  She  was  the  belle  of  the  ward,  and  that 
old  longshoreman  father  was  very  proud  of  her.  But 
before  that  she  had  one  little  adventure  that  is  really 
worth  a  story  by  itself,  and  it  shows  the  kind  of  a 
girl  she  is.  She  had  a  little  love  affair  with  a  sailor 
on  one  of  Uncle  Sam's  warships,  and  when  he  was 
ordered  to  Cuba  she  took  it  into  her  head  to  go  along. 
It  was  arranged  that  she  was  to  take  the  name  and 
place  of  a  fellow  who  was  about  to  desert.  She  came 
near  getting  away  with  the  trick,  and  as  it  was  she 
lasted  for  ten  days  before  she  was  found.    Then,  after 


112  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

a  brief  interview  with  the  commanding  officer,  she 
was  put  ashore  when  harbor  was  reached,  and  enough 
money  was  given  her  to  get  back  to  New  York. 

It  was  a  clean  case  of  throwback  to  the  army  ances- 
tor, and  the  resemblance  was  so  great  that  she  might 
have  been  his  sister.  She  held  her  head  high,  as  be- 
came that  one  strain  of  good  blood,  good  enough  to 
stiffen  her  pride,  but  not  good  enough  to  shape  her 
morals,  for  the  taint  was  there  in  its  full  strength. 

The  elderly  business  man  who  employed  her  began 
flirting  with  her  mildly,  and  he  wound  up  by  falling 
desperately  in  love,  and  so  hard  was  he  hit  that  at  the 
end  of  six  months  she  was  installed  in  a  handsome 
apartment  at  which  he  was  a  constant  visitor.  He 
took  the  one  step  that  always  leads  to  another,  so  that 
by  the  time  twelve  months  had  been  rolled  off  on  the 
calendar  he  had  made  her  home  his  home,  much  to 
the  detriment  of  his  own  respected  domicile. 

So  great  was  the  fascination  of  those  black  eyes  that 
this  sedate  old  gentleman  forgot  he  ever  had  a  home 
other  than  the  one  she  was  in;  a  wife,  or  even  chil- 
dren. She  became  so  necessary  to  his  existence  that 
she  became  a  part  of  his  life. 

She  might  have  walked  this  primrose  path  to  the 
end  had  he  not  died.  If  he  had  lived  there  would  have 
been  no  need  for  this  story. 

When  he  took  that  long,  last  journey  her  income 
came  to  an  abrupt  end  and  she  was  cast  on  her  own 
resources  with  not  even  her  longshoreman  daddy  to 
stand  by  and  encourage  her. 

All  this,  you  understand,  is  not  a  matter  of  fancy'.  It 
is,  for  the  most  part,  court  and  police  records. 


THE    THROWBACK  113 

She  took  up  with  a  young  fellow  of  about  her  own 
age  who  had  about  as  little  prospects  as  she  had,  and 
with  the  rent  paid  for  three  months  in  advance  and 
just  enough  ready  money  to  keep  them  going  that 
long,  they  cast  care  to  the  winds  and  proceeded  to  en- 
joy themselves.  One  night,  when  the  funds  were  get- 
ting to  a  low  ebb,  she,  while  ransacking  a  desk  for  a 
mislaid  letter,  found  a  half-used  check-book  which  had 
belonged  to  her  elderly  protector. 

"I  could  sign  his  name  better  than  he  could  himself," 
she  remarked,  "and  I've  done  it,  too." 

"Do  you  think  we  could  swing  one  of  them  now?" 
said  the  man,  sitting  up  straight  as  the  inspiration 
came  to  him. 

"Why,  that's  absurd;  he's  dead." 

"I  know  he's  dead  all  right.  But  fill  one  out  for  $75 
and  I'll  see  what  I  can  do  with  it." 

It  was  an  easy  trick  for  her.  and  in  a  moment  she 
had  handed  him  the  paper. 

"If  I  lay  this,  little  girl,"  he  remarked  as  he  went 
out,  "we're  on  the  sunny  side  of  Easy  street  for  the 
rest  of  our  lives." 

That  heritage  of  brain  stood  her  in  good  stead  while 
he  was  away,  and  before  he  had  returned  she  evolved 
a  scheme  that  was  worthy  of  a  better  cause. 

It  was  this : 

She  would  send  him  out  to  rob  a  letter  box;  they 
would  open  the  mail  thus  stolen  and  search  it  for 
checks.  She  would  copy  the  signature,  make  note  of 
the  bank,  get  blank  checks  of  that  institution  and  then 
commit  the  forgery. 

It  was  almost  too  easy  and  the  keynote  of  its  suc- 
cess lay  in  its  simplicity. 


114  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Of  course,  the  laying  of  the  spurious  paper  required 
nerve,  but  of  what  use  is  a  man  if  he  hasn't  nerve? 
When  he  came  back  unsuccessful,  she  explained  her 
scheme,  and  they  at  once  proceeded  to  put  it  in  oper- 
ation. With  wire,  to  which  was  fastened  an  adhesive 
mixture,  he  prepared  for  the  robbery  of  the  mail  boxes 
while  she  awaited  results. 

It  has  been  told  time  and  again  how  it  worked 
and  they  themselves  have  admitted  that  their  income 
rarely  fell  below  $100  a  day  when  they  cared  to  work. 

But  at  the  end  of  every  ready-money  proposition  of 
that  kind  there  is  a  trap.  Sometimes  the  road  is  very 
long  and  the  final  tragedy  is  averted  for  a  considerable 
period,  but  whether  long  or  short  it  is  bound  to  come 
sooner  or  later. 

The  girl  had  grown  to  be  a  pastmaster  of  the  art  of 
forging  signatures  and  success  in  getting  the  money 
had  made  the  man  bold.  He  began  to  be  less  cautious 
and  the  finish  came  so  sure  and  sudden  that  it  almost 
stunned  him. 

He  was  cleverly  harvested  by  the  police,  who  at  once 
set  out  to  get  more  than  enough  evidence  to  convict, 
for  they  looked  upon  him  as  the  most  dangerous  of 
criminals.  A  spotter  was  sent  out  with  instructions 
to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  girl  and,  if  possible,  get  a 
line  on  just  the  kind  of  work  that  had  been  done,  and 
their  second  interview  was  very  interesting. 

"Yon  take  Billy's  place  for  a  while,"  she   said  to 
him,  "and  we'll  get  enough  money  to  get  him  out." 
"How?"  asked  the  man. 

"How?  Are  you  stupid?  Billy  didn't  do  anything 
but  lay  the  paper.  I  filled  out  the  checks  every  time. 
Didn't  you  know  that  ?    It's  all  my  scheme.    Billy  only 


THE     THROWBACK  115 

helped  me  and  did  as  I  told  him.     But  he's  too  nice  a 
fellow  to  go  up  the  river  for  a  thing  like  this." 

It  seems  strange  that  with  all  her  astuteness  she 
should  have  given  her  hand  away  to  a  comparative 
stranger,  but  you  must  bear  in  mind  that  her  side  part- 
ner and  confederate  had  been  snatched  away  from  her 
and  she  felt  the  need  of  some  one  to  whom  she  could 
talk  and  in  whom  she  could  confide. 

There  is  where  she  made  a  mistake,  but  it  happened 
that  it  wasn't  a  fatal  one. 

Bear  in  mind  that  she  gave  her  hand  away  and  told 
all  she  knew,  and  in  that  telling  there  was  enough  to 
convict  her  half  a  dozen  times  over.  But  she  was 
game  to  the  last  ditch. 

"I'm  very  sorry,"  remarked  her  supposed  confeder- 
ate to  her  one  evening,  "but  I'll  have  to  arrest  you. 
I'm  an  officer,  you  know." 

"I  always  ought  .to  be  guided  by  my  first  impres- 
sions," she  retorted.  "I  had  an  idea  you  were  wrong 
when  I  first  met  you  and  if  I  had  stuck  to  that  you 
would  have  known  nothing." 

"That's  right ;  but  as  it  is  I'll  have  to  take  you  down 
to  headquarters." 

He  acted  as  if  it  was  a  job  he  didn't  relish  very 
much,  and  if  the  truth  were  told  he  would  have  let  her 
make  a  getaway  of  it  if  he  had  dared. 

In  the  prison  she  was  popular  as  soon  as  she  stepped 
inside  the  gates,  and  there  was  no  one  who  would  be- 
lieve that  a  girl  with  a  face  like  that  would  be  guilty 
of  harming  anyone,  much  less  being  a  confirmed  and 
expert  forger. 

So  the  trial  was  called. 


n6  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

She  treated  it  as  a  joke,  and  was  by  far  the  most 
composed  person  in  the  room.  Her  partner,  to  his 
credit,  swore  that  he  was  the  one  who  had  done  all  of 
the  robbing  of  the  mail  boxes,  and  all  of  the  forging  of 
checks,  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  imitate  several 
signatures,  but  that  was  offset  by  the  evidence  of  the 
detective. 

It  was  an  easy  matter  to  convict  him,  and  he  stood 
facing  a  term  in  prison. 

Her  trial  was  merely  a  bit  of  comedy  in  which  she 
played  the  star  part,  and  when  the  last  scene  had 
dropped  she  was  bowing  her  thanks  to  the  judge,  the 
jury,  the  lawyers  and  the  spectators,  and  smiling  all  the 
while  like  a  girl  with  a  new  doll  on  Christmas  morn- 
ing. The  red  was  in  her  cheeks  and  there  was  a  look 
of  roguery  in  her  black  eyes,  and  she  sailed  out  of  the 
courtroom  amid  a  perfect  shower  of  congratulations. 

And  it  was  all  for  one  strain  of  blood. 

Father  an  Irish  stevedore,  mother  a  Slav  peasant 
whom  centuries  of  oppression  had  made  apathetic, 
grandmother  also  a  Slav,  and  grandfather  a  German 
noble.  She  had  gone  back  one  generation  to  get  that 
criminal  taint,  and  she  may  have  gone  back  further 
than  that  to  get  the  good  strain  that  made  the  whole 
world  smile  with  her  when  she  smiled  and  turn  ene- 
mies into  friends. 


FROM  THE  WOODS  TO  BROADWAY 


Jane  her  name  was — plain  Jane — but  she  wasn't 
plain  by  any  means.  She  was  far  from  that.  She 
could  smoke  a  cigarette,  drink  a  bottle  of  wine,  and 
wear  a  Paquin  gown  with  grace,  and  in  these  three 
things  a  woman  has  a  chance  to  show  what  she  is 
and  what  she  can  do.  For  my  part  I  would  consider 
them  a  test,  just  the  same  as  performing  certain 
mathematical  calculations,  and  showing  a  proficiency 
in  geography  are  tests  in  civil  service  examinations. 
There  is  nothing  that  gives  a  woman  so  much  poise 
and  self-confidence  as  smoking  a  cigarette  daintily. 
It  gives  her  a  chance  to  think,  you  see,  and  appear- 
unconcerned,  and  it  is  an  ambush  behind  which  she 
may  hide  in  time  of  trouble. 

This  particular  Jane  had  all  the  vices  and  charms 
that  a  young  woman  who  is  known  to  the  crowd  by 
her  first  name  ought  to  have,  or  might  be  supposed  to 
have.  Men  who  were  introduced  to  her  found  them- 
selves calling  her  Jane  inside  of  the  hour,  and  that 
was  because  of  her  genius,  for  there  are  a  lot  of  wom- 
en in  this  world  whose  baptismal  name  no  man  would 
ever  dare  to  use,  even  though  they  had  been  acquaint- 
ed for  years. 

There  is  just  as  much  difference  in  women  as  there 
is  in  drinks.  It  isn't  necessary  to  go  into  details  on 
that  subject,  for  every  good  hard  drinker  knows  the 


m  #:tf£^  1 0      ip1;  \  j««  i ;,:  lit 


For  three  solid  hours  he  sat  there  trussed  up  like  a  chicken 


FROM    THE    WOODS    TO    BROADWAY       119 

different  sensations  of  the  different  brands  the  morn- 
ing after. 

Jane  blew  into  the  big  city  with  a  West  wind,  a 
dress  suit  case,  on  one  end  of  which  were  the  initials 
of  her  right  name,  and  the  drummer  of  a  wholesale 
lace  house  who  had  caught  her  eye  and  won  her  re- 
gard by  giving  her  some  of  his  samples. 

Your  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  a  drum- 
mer's existence  is  a  cinch,  especially  if  he  has  samples 
that  he  can  afford  to  give  away. 

This  one  had  a  mustache  that  curled  at  the  ends,  a 
bank  roll  that  looked  like  a  toy  balloon  into  which  a 
kid  had  stuck  a  pin — which  was  Jane's  fault — and  a 
nerve  which  was  a  litttle  bit  harder  than  Harveyized 
steel.  He  used  the  nerve  in  his  business,  and  besides, 
it  came  in  handy  so  far  as  Jane  was  concerned  because 
he  had  a  wife  in  Harlem.  He  planted  Jane  in  a  fur- 
nished flat,  where  he  paid  the  rent  for  two  weeks. 
Then  because  he  had  a  champagne  taste  and  a  beer 
purse,  he  went  to  a  pal  of  his  who  was  a  stage  man- 
ager on  Broadway  and  got  the  lady  a  job  carrying 
a  spear  and  wearing  pale  pink  tights  in  a  spectacular 
show  that  was  about  to  be  produced. 

He  was  sitting  in  her  front  room  warming  his 
shins  at  the  steam  heat  when  he  broke  the  news  to  her, 
and  this  is  the  way  he  did  it.  You  sports  can  take  a 
tip  from  this  so  you  can  see  how  it  is  done,  for  no 
man  can  ever  foretell  when  he  will  be  called  on  to 
produce  the   same   line   of  talk. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  began,  "that  you  are  the  best 
fellow  in  the  world  and  that  the  more  I  see  of  you 
the  more  I  like  you?" 


120  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Do  you?"  asked  Jane,  simply,  for  she  was  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  a  country  girl.  "I  am  very 
glad  of  that,  but  you  know  the  rent  was  due  yester- 
day and  it  hasn't  been  paid  yet." 

"Now,"  he  went  on,  ignoring  the  touch,  "I  know 
you  well  enough  to  know  that  you  would  like  to  be 
independent  and  make  your  own  way  in  the  world.  I 
want  to  see  you  where  you  will  be  in  a  position  to 
support  yourself,  and  so  I  have  arranged  with  a  man 
who  is  under  obligations  to  me  to  give  you  a  chance 
and  put  you  in  the  chorus  of  the  'Ice  King.'  You'll 
get  $15  a  week  at  the  start  and  then  you'll  be  jumped 
to  $18.  After  that  it's  up  to  you  whether  or  not  you 
come  to  the  front  and  get  the  real  good  money  with 
the  yellowbacks." 

"But  I  have  never  been  on  the  stage,"  she  said. 

"Don't  I  know  that,  and  haven't  I  fixed  it?  You'll 
be  broken  in  all  right  and  all  you  have  to  do  is  as  you 
are  told  and  you'll  get  your  money  every  Monday 
night." 

So  it  was  that  the  girl  from  Peapack,  N.  J.,  became 
independent  and  self-supporting,  and  was  able  before 
long  to  send  a  hundred-dollar  note  to  the  folks  at 
home,  for  whom  she  still  had  a  deep  regard.  You 
see,  it  is  only  the  girls  who  save  their  money  who  can 
do  that  sort  of  thing. 

When  the  young  fellows  around  town  wanted  to 
see  a  show,  some  one  would  suggest  that  they  go  up 
and  see  Jane,  and  although  she  hadn't  a  line  to  speak 
nor  a  note  to  sing,  they  would  line  up  in  the  front 
row  as  if  she  was  a  star.  It  didn't  take  the  manager 
of  the  show  very  long  to  find  out  that  Jane  could  draw 


FROM    THE    WOODS    TO    BROADWAY      121 

like  a  porous  plaster  and  then  he  jumped  her  salary 
up  to  $25. 

With  that  she  went  to  a  fashionable  hair  dresser 
and  paid  $200  to  have  her  hair  turned  from  chestnut 
blonde  to  a  hue  of  a  stick  of  pale  molasses  taffy,  the 
kind  you  get  for  five  cents  a  throw,  which  sticks  in 
your  teeth  and  plays  the  deuce  with  the  filling. 

Girls  of  Jane's  kind  are  like  boxers,  in  that  their 
prosperity  is  manifested  outwardly  without  delay.  The 
aspiring  young  knuckle-duster,  as  soon  as  he  wins  a 
prominent  battle,  will  at  once  hie  himself  off  and 
blow  in  a  chunk  of  the  purse  on  a  silk  hat,  patent 
leather  shoes,  a  frock  coat  and  a  cane.  With  the 
balance  he  will  annex  a  diamond,  then  he  immediately 
becomes  the  real  thing. 

A  girl  has  no  use  for  frock  coats  and  canes,  but  she 
goes  strong  on  hair,  so  her  loose  coin  goes  for  a 
gallon  of  bleach  strong  enough  to  change  the  faith  of 
a  Hindoo  fakir,  and  that  is  the  strongest  thing  in  the 
world,  except,  perhaps,  an  African  after  a  hard  day's 
work  in  the  slaughter  house. 

She  had  a  flat  on  Central  Park,  South — that's 
wrong,  it  was  an  apartment,  because  she  paid  over 
$1,000  a  year  for  it,  whereas  flats  only  cost  about  $40 
a  month — and  she  entertained  the  bunch  with  cozy 
little  wine  dinners  that  would  make  a  man  leave  his 
happy  home  in  a  minute. 

She  was  still  getting  her  $25  a  week,  you  know. 

Then  she  tore  the  drummer's  name  out  of  her  ad- 
dress book,  for  he  was  a  back  number  who  had  shown 
a  decided  tendency  to  cold  feet. 

She  described  him  to  the  butler,  and  said  that  if  he 


122  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

ever  put  in  an  appearance  he  was  to  be  dismissed 
with  the  single  word: 

"Skiddoo." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  the  butler,  whose  previ- 
ous job  had  been  on  Fifth  avenue.  "What  does 
Skiddoo  mean?" 

"It  doesn't  make  any  difference  whether  you  under- 
stand or  not,  just  you  say  it  to  him  and  he  will  know, 
and  that's  enough." 

And  all  that  night  this  cheese  sandwich  with  the 
side  whiskers  kept  repeating  the  word  to  himself  so 
he  wouldn't  forget  it,  and  he  wrote  it  down  on  his 
cuff.  He  also  traced  it  out  on  a  card  that  he  stuck 
in  behind  the  hat  rack  in  the  hall.  In  his  heart  and 
soul  he  thought  it  was  some  foreign  word  which 
meant  that  the  lady  wasn't  at  home  or  didn't  care  to 
be   disturbed. 

That's  the  worst  of  being  a  butler  instead  of  Chuck 
Connors. 

The  traveling  man  with  the  immaculate  gall  had 
reached  the  worrying  stage  because  the  girl  was  do- 
ing so  well  and  he  had  been  pushed  off  the  track. 
If  she  had  stuck  to  her  little  furnished  flat  and  the 
cheap  togs  he  would  have  gone  on  his  way  whistling 
a  merry  tune,  just  as  all  men  do.  But  she  was  on 
the  high  wave  and  sipping  the  cream  off  the  top,  and 
he  thought  there  ought  to  be  an  armchair  waiting 
for  him  by  the  fireplace  of  her  new  ranch,  which  was 
very  natural,  for  all  men  are  cast  in  the  same  identical 
mould.  They  don't  care  for  what  they  have,  and  are 
always  hunting  for  something  that's  hard  to  get. 

If  you  look  like  the  goods  you'll  have  them  all  go- 


FROM    THE    WOODS    TO    BROADWAY       123 

ing,  but  as  soon  as  you  tell  your  hard  luck  story  you'll 
get  the  sandbag  where  it  will  do  the  most  good. 

One  night,  after  the  show,  Jane  and  a  bunch  of  the 
merry-merry  with  money  to  spend,  or  burn,  or  throw 
away,  was  in  the  front  room  playing  dollar  limit  poker, 
when  the  drummer,  with  a  choice  collection  of  high 
balls  stowed  away  under  his  vest,  and  in  a  fit  condi- 
tion to  either  fight  or  cry,  came  up  in  the  elevator. 
He  had  overdrawn  his  salary  and  was  prepared  to 
buy  wine,  if  necessary,  and  he  was  dressed  like  a  man 
whose  credit  is  good  at  the  best  clothing  store  in 
town. 

He  held  his  thumb  against  the  electric  button  for  a 
moment,  and  because  the  butler  was  busy  with  a 
sauterne  cup,  very  choice,  being  of  the  Barton  and 
Guestier  vintage  of  '84,  the  kind  Smithy  always  orders 
when  he  wants  to  be  real  flossy,  the  maid  turned  the 
knob  and  came  face  to  face  with  him. 

He  made  his  little  spiel,  shoved  in  and  stood  in  the 
hall  on  one  foot  waiting  for  the  glad  hand  and  the 
happy  cry  that  he  felt  sure  was  coming. 

"What's  his  name?  Who  is  he?  Why  don't  you  get 
his  card?"  he  heard  Jane  say.  Then  the  maid  came 
back. 

"Will  you  please  give  me  your  card?" 

"That  won't  be  necessary,"  he  remarked  airily. 
"Just  tell  her  Harry  is  here  and  she  will  know." 

He  heard  the  maid  telling  her  little  story  and  then 
Jane's  silver  tones  floated  out  to  him. 

"What,  that  lobster?  How  did  he  get  in?  He 
must  have  had  a  shoe  horn,  and  I  suppose  it  will  take 
a  load  of  dynamite  to  get  him  out."  Then  something 
else  and  all  the  girls  laughed. 


124  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

He  pulled  himself  together  and  walked  to  where 
the  voice  came  from. 

The  heat  of  the  room  was  beginning  to  affect  the 
cargo  he  was  carrying  and  he  hit  both  sides  of  the 
wall  about  eight  times  before  he  got  to  the  door.  He 
pulled  the  curtains  aside  and  looked  in  on  the  game. 

"Just  thought  I'd  call,"  he  said,  grinning. 

"Well,  didn't  I  always  tell  you  that  you  had  bad 
thoughts?"  she  asked. 

'Thought  you'd  be  glad  to  see  me,"  he  went  on. 

"Still  thinking?"  she  queried.  "I'll  see  that  raise 
and  raise  you  back  ten  more." 

"I  wouldn't  mind  taking  a  hand  if  you'll  play  fair.'' 
Just  then  the  butler  came  in  with  the  drinks. 

"Henderson,"  remarked  Jane  without  even  so  much 
as  looking  up,  "what  was  that  word  I  taught  you — do 
you  remember  it?" 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

"Well,   what   was   it?" 

"Skid-doo,  ma'am." 

"Very  good.  Now  turn  around  and  say  it  to  that 
man." 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

He  turned  slowly  and  with  great  dignity  to  the 
drummer  who  was  bracing  himself  up  against  the  door, 
and  commanded : 

"Skid-doo,  sir." 

"So/'mto  be  fired,  eh?" 

"Say  it  again,  James ;  it  may  be  some  minutes  be- 
fore it  takes  effect." 

"Skid-doo,  sir." 

"Suppose  I  don't  go?" 


FROM    THE    WOODS    TO    BROADWAY       125 

There  was  no  answer  to  that,  but  Jane  hadn't  been 
in  New  York  a  whole  year  without  being  on  to  her 
job,  and  she  was  able  to  face  any  proposition  that 
ever  came  over  the  hills. 

"Get  me  a  piece  of  rope,  James." 
"Yes,  ma'am,"  and  away  he  went,  just  a  bit  faster 
than  usual,  wondering,  no  doubt,  what  the  eccentric 
and  erratic  mistress  of  his  was  going  to  do  next.  He 
got  the  rope  all  right  and  returned  with  it  in  short 
order,  because  this  seemed  to  be  a  case  where  haste 
was  necessary,  even  at  the  expense  of  dignity.  She 
took  it  from  him  and  walking  over  to  the  drummer, 
said,  as  she  deftly  passed  it  around  him. 

"You  had  me  on  a  string  once,  Harry,  and  now 
I'm  going  to  get  you  on  a  rope." 

"Stop  your  kidding  and  be  nice,  Jane,"  he  spoke 
up,  trying  to  look  upon  the  whole  thing  as  a  joke, 
but  while  he  was  expostulating  she  had  knotted  the 
rope  around  both  his  arms  and  signalled  to  the  butler 
to  help  her.  "I  want  him  tied  over  there,"  she  said, 
pointing  to  the  piano,  and  before  he  knew  it  he  was 
seated  on  the  floor  with  his  back  up  against  a  slab  of 
mahogany,  being  held  by  the  servant  while  Jane  was 
making  knots  like  a  sailor. 

When  the  job  was  done  the  game  was  resumed 
and  nobody  in  the  room  paid  the  slightest  bit  of  at- 
tention to  him.  He  threatened  and  begged  and  final- 
ly he  swore,  and  then  Jane  poured  a  glass  of  ice  water 
over  his  head  to  cool  him  off. 

"I  always  thought  you  had  a  mean  disposition," 
she  remarked,  "and  now  I  know  it." 

"Well,  you  wouldn't  be  here  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
me,"  he  shouted. 


126  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"No,  nor  you  wouldn't  be  there  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
me,"    she   retorted. 

For  three  solid  hours  he  was  kept  trussed  up  like 
a  fowl  ready  for  the  oven,  and  at  the  end  of  that 
time  the  game  came  to  an  end. 

"I'm  going  to  bed  now,"  said  Jane,  "and  in  half 
an  hour  the  butler  will  come  in  and  untie  you.  He 
will  help  you  to  your  feet  and  when  he  says  skiddoo 
to  you  I  hope  you  will  understand  what  he  means. 
Good   night." 

For  thirty  minutes  the  clock  ticked  monotonously 
and  the  back  of  the  man  on  the  floor  was  beginning 
to  ache  horribly.  At  last  the  silvery  chime  announced 
the  half  hour  and  then  Henderson  stepped  softly  in. 

One  by  one  he  untied  the  fastenings,,  and  it  was  a 
tough  job  in  view  of  the  fact  that  a  woman  had  made 
them.  After  that  he  helped  the  visitor  to  his  feet. 
He  assisted  him  on  with  his  coat,  handed  him  his 
hat,  and  together  they  walked,  without  either  saying 
a  word,  to  the  hall  door.  The  butler  swung  it  sol- 
emnly open,  slowly  waved  his  hand,  bowed  deeply 
from  the  hips  and  said: 

"Skid-doo,  sir." 

"Go  to  hell,"  came  back  the  answer,  as  Harry  shot 
down  the  stairs. 

"How  did  he  take  it?"  asked  Jane  the  next  morn- 
ing. 

"He  took  it  all  right,  ma'am,  but  he  was  very  un- 
civil, ma'am." 


THE  WHIMS  OF  CURVES 

The  fellows  who  buy  wine  and  eat  terrapin  at  their 
midnight  lunches — I  ought  to  say  dinners — had  found 
a  new  attraction,  and  for  a  brief  while  she  was  the 
idol  of  the  hour.  But  the  trouble  with  these  idols 
is  that  they  don't  last,  and  the  finish  as  a  rule  is  very 
disheartening,  and  in  many  cases  pathetic. 

Of  course,  every  once  in  a  while  a  wise  one  will 
come  to  the  front  who  will  do  a  little  bookkeeping  with 
herself,  and  when  the  smoke  of  battle  will  have  cleared 
away  she  finds  she  has  enough  to  tell  everybody  to  go 
to  blazes  if  she  cares  to  be  rude. 

But  that  is  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule.  Quick 
money,  you  know,  is  like  a  dream,  in  that  it  only  lasts 
while  you  are  asleep.  You  think  you  are  in  a  mansion, 
and  when  the  knock  comes  on  the  door  you  discover 
that  you  are  in  the  same  old  hall  bedroom,  and  realize 
that  you  have  to  get  up  just  as  you  have  been  doing 
all  your  life,  and  work  ten  hours  a  day — or  eight,  as 
the  case  may  be — in  order  to  get  enough  money  to  pay 
what  you  owe. 

The  girl  that  all  the  bloods  were  buying  dinners  and 
flowers  for  came  from  the  West  not  so  very  long  ago, 
and  she  didn't  leave  any  of  her  good  looks  behind  her, 
either.  She  hit  the  town  with  a  dress  suit  case,  a 
good  complexion  and  a  taking  way  with  the  boys,  and 
that's  all  the  capital  any  skirt  wearer  needs  in  Gotham 
if  she  is  only  introduced  to  the  right  crowd  of  spenders 


She  put  herself  up  at  auction  and  was  promptly  bid  on 


THE     WHIMS    OF    CURVES  129 

and  keeps  away  from  the  pikers  who  have  their  Bank 
rolls  lashed  to  the  mast  or  bottled  up  so  tight  that  when 
they  do  release  a  bill  it  smells  like  an  Egyptian  mummy 
which  has  been  packed  in  a  vault  since  the  time  of 
Pharaoh. 

This  lady  hit  the  trail  which  led  to  the  show  houses. 
She  had  no  idea  that  she  was  an  Adelina  Patti  or  a 
Sarah  Bernhardt,  but  she  knew  she  could  carry  a 
spear  as  good  as  any  old-timer,  and  she  was  prepared 
to  make  good. 

"Got  a  job  for  me?"  she  asked  the  first  stage  mana- 
ger she  happened  to  run  across. 

He  looked  her  over  and  then  remarked  casually : 
"I  don't  think  so,  for  all  the  star  parts  are  given  out 
for  the  season,  but  you  might  go  over  and  see  Froh- 
man   and    ask   him    if   you    can't   understudy    Maude 
Adams." 

"Don't  strain  your  voice  on  my  account,"  she  said, 
by  way  of  a  come-back.    "I'm  looking  for  about  $18  a 
week  in  the  line-up,  and  when  it  comes  to  tights,  I 
guess  there  ain't  any  of  them  who  has  anything  on  me. 
You  had  me  flagged  for  a  Sis  Hopkins,  but  you  want 
to  throw  some  sand  on  the  track  because  you're  slid- 
ing.   I  don't  sit  up  at  night  reading  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
and  where  I  come  from  they  think  Shakespeare  is  a 
new  kind  of  breakfast  food.    Can  you  get  busy  now?'* 
"I  guess  I'll  have  to  if  I  want  to  get  rid  of  you." 
"Well,  you're  learning,  and  that's  a  good  sign." 
So  after  he  had  looked  her  over  again  very  carefully, 
he  concluded  she'd  do  for  the  chorus  for  a  starter  any- 
how. 

A  stage  manager  who  is  used  to  hiring  ladies  whose 
talents  lie  in  their  legs  has  a  system  of  his  own  in  pick- 


130  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

ing  out  good  ones  that  don't  need  padding,  and  he 
never  makes  a  mistake  any  more  than  a  red  squirrel 
will  stow  away  a  bad  nut  for  the  winter.  Face,  neck, 
hands  and  arms  tell  the  story  and  they  never  fail,  and 
so  he  knew  she  could  wear  the  usual  size,  and  if  any- 
thing stretch   them  a  bit. 

That  was  the  beginning. 

One  night  four  young  men  about  town  sat  in  a  the- 
atre box  watching  the  merry  maidens  tropping  on  and 
telling  in  song  how  happy  they  were  that  the  Princess 
was  going  to  be  married  to  the  poor  but  handsome 
gink  whose  father  had  a  cobbler's  shop  one  block  from 
the  palace. 

"Get  onto  the  curves  of  the  girl  with  the  black  hair," 
said  one,  and  in  a  minute  there  were  four  pairs  of  eyes 
looking  at  one  pair  of  silk  tights. 

"Great,',  said  another,  enthusiastically. 

"Who  is  she?"  asked  a  third.  "I  never  saw  her 
before." 

"Well,  Ben  certainly  has  an  eye  for  beauty.  I  won- 
der where  he  gets  them?  Let's  see  him  and  ask  him 
to  put  us  on,  for  she's  all  right." 

Incidentally,  Ben  was  the  first  name  of  the  stage 
manager. 

It  isn't  necessary  to  go  into  details,  for  general  re- 
sults save  a  lot  of  time,  but  a  couple  of  hours  later  four 
enthusiastic  young  fellows  and  a  dimpled  brunette  sat 
at  a  round  table  in  a  sporty  cafe,  and  when  any  of  them 
wanted  to  address  her  they  called  her  Curves. 

"What  are  you  trying  to  do  ?"  she  asked,  when  it  was 
first  sprung,  "give  me  a  nickname?" 

"No,"  was  the  answer,  "simply  a  trademark." 

And  they  all  understood. 


THE     WHIMS    OF    CURVES  131 

So  because  of  that  she  began  her  career  with  the 
world  by  the  tailon  a  downhill  pull. 

Not  to  know  Curves  and  have  her  call  you  by  your 
first  name  when  you  met  was  to  be  the  deadest  kind 
of  a  dead  one,  and  the  witty  stories  she  could  tell  over 
a  quart  of  wine  soon  began  to  be  circulated  around 
town. 

As  is  often  the  case,  women  were  her  enemies  and 
men  were  her  friends,  and  she  slid  along  in  a  happy-go- 
lucky  way,  letting  the  morrow  take  care  of  itself. 

There  was  no  question  but  that  her  figure  was  the 
making  of  her,  just  as  Jennie  Joyce's  legs  made  her 
famous  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  when 
she  was  a  reigning  favorite  at  Koster  &  Bial's  old 
place  on  Twenty-third  street  two  decades  ago. 

The  photographer  who  secured  some  good  poses  of 
Curves  in  tights  found  himself  busy  printing  them  to 
supply  the  demand,  and  it  was  as  easy  to  get  her  before 
a  camera  as  it  was  to  get  a  kid  to  a  candy  store.  If 
she  had  received  a  dollar  for  every  time  she  wrote 
across  the  bottom  of  one  of  her  photographs  "Sincerely 
yours,  Curves,"  she  would  have  had  a  bank  account 
that  would  have  been  broad,  wide  and  deep.  But  she 
was  simply  a  good  fellow  and  she  made  no  attempt  to 
live  by  her  wits.  Like  many  another  poor  devil,  she 
probably  thought  she  would  always  be  young,  good- 
looking  and  popular.  She  didn't  know  that  those  whom 
the  public  applauds  to-day  it  kills  to-morrow,  and  that 
it  takes  but  a  week  in  New  York  to  make  a  favorite 
less  than  a  memory. 

But  there  was  one  incident  in  her  career  that  stands 
out  in  relief  from  anything  of  the  kind  that  anyone 
had  ever  done  before,  and  it  is  worth  telling.     It  was 


132  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

characteristic  of  her  to  do  a  thing  of  this  sort,  and  she 
was  the  one  woman  in  a  hundred  who  could  have  got 
away  with  it. 

A  soulful-eyed,  chocolate-skinned  Brahmin  priest 
had  come  to  town  to  spread  his  faith,  and  because 
he  talked  in  an  exceedingly  entertaining  manner  and 
told  some  curious  and  interesting  stories  he  came  to  be 
a  fad.  It  wasn't  that  the  people  who  went  to  see  and 
hear  him  were  interested  in  his  religion,  but  it  was  be- 
cause he  was  a  novelty  that  he  filled  his  lecture  room 
every  afternoon.  Two  men  and  Curves  dropped  in 
one  afternoon  at  a  time  when  this  spreader  of  a  new 
creed  was  telling  about  the  money  it  would  cost  to  do 
good  in  the  world,  and  on  that  subject  he  was  particu- 
larly eloquent. 

"You  Americans,"  he  said,  "don't  know  what  it  is 
to  make  a  sacrifice ;  you  don't  know  what  it  is  to  deny 
yourselves  any  of  the  good  things  of  life.  Your  men 
would  not  forego  their  cigars  or  wine  even  if  the  spir- 
itual salvation  of  the  world  depended  upon  it,  and  your 
women  would  not  permit  themselves  one  particle  of 
physical  discomfort  nor  cheaper  wearing  apparel  even 
though  a  hundred  souls  were  the  price.  The  whole 
world  is  selfish  and  wrapped  up  in  itself,  and  religion 
is  either  a  fad  or  a  jest.  The  man  with  a  million  gives 
a  few  thousands  and  thinks  he  has  done  well,  but  he 
denies  himself  nothing.  The  woman  with  a  check 
book  doles  out  dimes  and  fancies  herself  a  philanthro- 
pist, but  will  she  make  any  sacrifice  for  the  general 
good?" 

"Here's  one   who  will." 

Two-thirds  of  the  people  in  the  room  turned  around 


THE    WHIMS    OF    CURVES  133 

and  looked  at  Curves,  and  one  of  the  fellows  with  her 
took  her  arm  and  whispered : 

"What  is  the  matter,  are  you  dotty?" 

The  ox-like  eyes  of  the  religious  enthusiast  seemed 
to  blaze  up  a  bit. 

"You  will  make  a  sacrifice?"  he  asked.  "What  can 
you  give?" 

"I'll  give  myself,"  she  answered,  and  she  stood  up 
defiantly. 

People  who  tell  this  story,  as  well  as  a  few  who 
were  there,  say  that  Curves  had  a  -most  elegant  tide  on 
at  the  time  and  didn't  know  what  she  was  saying,  but 
that  doesn't  alter  the  story,  because  this  is  simply  a 
recital  of  facts  which  can  be  verified  by  a  whole  lot 
of  the  fellows,  and  the  sequel  can  be  found  on  record 
among  the  marriages  in  the  Bureau  of  Vital  Statistics 
by  anyone  who  is  interested  enough  to  look  it  up. 

"It  is  very  praiseworthy,"  continued  the  priest,  "but 
how  do  you  propose  to  put  your  gift  to  a  practical 
use?  You  say  you  will  give  yourself.  Do  you  mean 
by  that  that  you  will  devote  your  time  to  this  work 
which  I  am  trying  to  carry  on  ?" 

"Not  that  way  so  you  can  notice  it,  but  I  have  a  lot 
of  men  friends  here  and  each  one  of  them  has  asked 
me  to  marry  him  more  than  once.  I  like  them  all  and 
as  marriage  is  a  lottery  anyhow,  they  can  bid  for  me, 
and  you  get  the  money." 

As  she  spoke  she  was  climbing  up  on  the  table  in 
the  center  of  the  room.  "I  am  ready  for  the  first  offer 
and  I  don't  care  who  makes  it,  for  I'm  taking  as  many 
chances  as  anybody  else." 

Now  here  was  a  situation  that  reads  like  a  romance. 
and  here  was  the  one  in  a  thousand  to  get  away  with 


134  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

it.  The  women  were  shocked,  of  course ;  the  men  were 
interested,  and  as  for  the  priest  he  didn't  know  whether 
to  take  it  seriously  or  not,  until  finally  what  might  have 
been  an  awkward  situation  was  relieved  by  a  man  who 
said : 

"Well,  if  she's  game  enough  to  have  herself  auc- 
tioned off,  I'm  game  enough  to  make  a  bid,  so  I'll  say 
$500,  with  the  proviso  that  the  cause  of  religion,  which 
our  revered  friend  represents,  shall  get  half,  the  other 
half  to  go  to  the  lady  who  shows  such  a  praiseworthy 
spirit." 

Then  three  gaunt  females  over  forty  arose  in  the 
majesty  of  their  outraged  womanhood  and  stalked 
from  the  room,  while  a  dozen  others  moved  uneasily 
in  their  seats. 

The  Brahmin  was  still  figuring. 

"Am  I  worth  no  more  than  $500?"  put  in  Curves. 

"I'll  make  it  $750,"  said  one  of  the  men  who  had  ac- 
companied her. 

"You  paid  twice  as  much  for  a  horse  last  week, 
Billy,"  she  retorted. 

"I  didn't  think  of  that.  Let  it  go  at  $1,500,  for 
there's  going  to  be  competition." 

The  priest's  hand  was  nervously  fingering  a  silk 
handkerchief. 

"Two  thousand,"  the  first  bidder's  voice  came  like  a 
bullet  from  a  gun,  and  Billy  laughed  nervously. 

"Go  ahead,  Billy,  it's  up  to  you  again,"  and  Curves 
nodded  at  him  encouragingly. 

"She's  worth  it,  Bill,"  whispered  his  friend.  "Your 
Panhard  cost  you  $11,000  and  it  takes  $100  a  week  to 
keep  it  going.  Curves  can  be  very  economical  when 
she  tries,"  and  he  laughed  at  his  joke. 


THE    WHIMS    OF    CURVES  135 

'Twenty-five  hundred,"  bid  Billy. 

"Sold,"  cried  Curves,  "although  I'm  worth  more." 

"Very  extraordinary," .  said  the  priest,  wiping  his 
forehead  with  his  handkerchief.  "This  could  happen 
in  no  other  country  in  the  world." 

"Write  him  a  check,  Billy,  for  what  you  owe  him," 
said  Curves,  "and  then  we'll  go  out  and  get  married. 
And  don't  you  think  it  would  be  nice  to  have  him  to 
dinner  with  us?" 

"Sure  thing,  and  we'll  have  the  other  fellow  who  bid 
along,  too.  By  the  way,  who  is  he?  I  don't  ever 
remember  to  have  seen  him  before.  Do  you  know  him  ?" 

Now  what  a  chance  here  for  a  climax,  for  a  real 
whipping  finish,  as  it  were.  It  might  be  arranged  so 
that  the  girl  would  say  sadly : 

"Yes,  he  holds  the  mortgage  on  the  farm  and  has 
threatened  to  foreclose  it  if  I  don't  marry  him.  Oh, 
Billy,  you  must  save  me." 

Then  Billy  would  pull  out  his  check  book,  pay  the 
villain  off  to  the  penny  and  the  man  would  go  tearing 
out  of  the  door  shouting : 

"Foiled  again,  c-u-u-rses  on  you,  but  I'll  have  re- 
venge," with  the  accent  on  revenge. 

But  no  such  thing  happened,  because  you  see  Curves 
never  had  an  interest  in  a  farm,  and  it  is  very  much  to 
be  doubted  if  she  knew  anything  about  a  father  or 
mother.     The  result  was  that  she  said : 

"Oh,  I  suppose  he's  some  guy  that's  been  to  the  show 
and  got  stuck  on  my  shape." 

The  honeymoon  lasted  six  months,  which  was 
enough  for  Billy,  and  he  beat  it  to  New  Orleans,  while 
his  friends  told  Curves  that  they  thought  he  had  com- 
mitted suicide. 


She  went  into  the  smoking  car  and  calmly  lighted  a  cigarette 


CHEYENNE  NELL;  TRIMMER 

The  gambler  in  this  story  came  from  the  West  to 
get  a  little  New  York  money.  He  had  been  getting 
it  for  years  from  the  Sierra  Nevadas  to  El  Paso,  and 
from  Seattle  as  far  east  as  Omaha,  which  he  said  was 
far  enough  for  anybody  who  liked  fresh  air,  but  he  had 
struck  a  run  of  bad  luck  and  one'  of  his  pals  told-  him 
that  the  best  way  to  break  it  was  to  trim  a  New  York 
sucker. 

"They're  fly  guys  there  all  right,"  remarked  this 
same  man,  casually,  "but  the  flyer  they  are  the  easier 
it  is  to  trim  them.  I  would  sooner  stack  up  against 
a  stock  broker  that  runs  one  of  those  bubble  machines 
and  can  speak  sixteen  different  languages  than  get 
into  a  game  with  a  Kansas  farmer  any  day.  The 
farmer,  knows  he  ain't  in  it  and  he's  got  his  eye*  out  for 
a  job  every  time;  his  coat  is  buttoned  up  so  tight  that 
he  has  contraction  of  the  lungs  and  his  heart  doesn't 
beat  right,  but  the  gink  that  knows  it  all  thinks  he's 
so  damned  smart  that  he's  got  everybody  in  the  world 
in  his  corral,  and  those- are  the  feltows  you  catch  with 
their  vests  open." 

All  homely  philosophy,  but  as  true  as  gospel  and 
worth   looking   into. 

So  Big  Ben — that  was  his  name  in  the  country 
where  slouch  hats  are  the  real  thing — pulled  his 
freight   one   night   and   hit   the    Overland    Flyer    for 


138  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Gotham.  His  name  was  Big  Ben  no  longer,  for  the 
cards'  he  carried  in  his  vest  pocket  read : 

Benjamin  F.  Van  Buren,  Mining  Engineer. 

He  bought  tickets  for  two  at  the  station,  and  there 
is  the  heart  of  the  story,  as  one  of  the  tickets  was 
for  Cheyenne  Nellie. 

The  lady  in  the  case  is  worth  a  paragraph  at  the 
very  least,  for  she  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  best 
short-card  dealer  in  Texas,  and  at  a  game  of  bank, 
whether  playing  the  cards  or  handling  the  box,  she 
was  there  with  the  goods  and  never  asked  any  odds  on 
account  of  her  sex. 

She  had  the  long,  slim  hands  of  a  card  player,  and 
if  she  hadn't  taken  to  the  pasteboards  she  might  have 
been  a  piano  player  and  getting  all  kinds  of  money 
for  hitting  up  the  ivories  at  swell  concerts.  She  was 
soft  of  voice  and  soft  in  manner,  and  all  you  had  to 
do  to  make  a  lady  out  of  her  was  to  wrap  'her  in  a 
silk  robe  and  she'd  make  the  horses  in  the  street 
turn  around  and  look  after  her. 

On  one  memorable  occasion  she  went  into  the  smok- 
ing car  of  a  Denver  train  and  calmly  lighting  a  ciga- 
rette, smoked  it  without  deigning  to  notice  the  men 
around  her. 

The  trip  was  settled  in  a  minute  and  in  this  way. 

"It's  a  long  ride,  Nell,"  observed  Ben,  "to  the 
place  I'm  going,  and  I'm  afraid  I'll  get  lost  or  lonely, 
so  if  you'll  come  along  with  me  I'll  tog  you  out  like 
a  queen  and  give  you  the  time  of  your  life.  Will 
you  carry  my  brand  for  the,  trip  ?" 

"How  big  is  your  bank  roll?"  she  asked,  with  an 
eye  to  the  practical  side  of  the  proposition. 


CHEYENNE    NELL;     TRIMMER  139 

"Twenty-seven  hundred,  and  two  thousand  to  draw 
on  if  I  lose  out." 

'That's  enough  for  a  starter.  What  are  you  going 
to  do — short-card  'em  or  bank  'em?" 

"Anything  and  everything  including  stud,  and  if  I 
get  the  big  bundle  we'll  hike  for  that  place  across 
the  big  pond  where  the  real  games  are.  What's  the 
name  of  it — I  forget  now.  I  had  it  written  down 
somewhere,  but  I  guess  I've  lost  it.  It  begins  with 
an  M  I  think,  and  there  was  a  fellow  at  the  show  the 
other  night  who  had  it  in  his  song  about  how  he 
broke  the  bank  there." 

"Oh,  you   mean   Monte   Carlo." 

"Yes,  that's  it.  We'll  go  there  and  I'll  put  you  up 
against  the  game,  for  you  always  were  hell  when  it 
came  to  a  no-limit  play." 

One  night  stop-over  in  Chicago  to  see  a  show,  and 
then,  twenty-four  hours  later,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Benja- 
min F.  Van  Buren,  of  Portland,  Oregon,  registered 
at  the  Waldorf-Astoria. 

"Kind  of  like  a  theatre,  ain't  it?"  remarked  Ben, 
as  they  sat  in  the  palm  room  after  dinner.  "Looks 
like  Romeo  and  Juliet  where  the  gal  is  on  the  gallery 
and  the  fellow  with  the  skin-tight  pants  is  asking  her 
to  come  down  and  talk  it  over." 

Men  who  are  supposed  to  know  say  that  New  York 
is  the  loneliest  place  in  the  world,  that  is,  if  you  don't 
know  anyone,  and  that  a  desert  island  is  a  center  of 
population  compared  to  it  if  you  are  not  in  right.  On 
the  face  of  it  that  looks  like  a  good  argument,  but  it 
is  going  to  be  disproved  right  here.  Go  to  a  big  and 
fashionable  hotel  and  register,  then  sit  around  and 
be   a   bit    conspicuous,    look   like    ready    money,    and 


140  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

above  all,  easy  money,  and  you'll  draw  people  like  a 
Jack  rose  draws  bees.  They'll  find  you  out  just  as 
easily  as  the  ferret  gets  to  the  timid  rabbit — by  going 
after  you — and  unless  your  heart  is  covered  with  cal- 
lous spots  and  your  pockets  are  fastened  with  safety 
pins,  when  you  come  to  count  up  at  night  you'll  find 
you  are  short  a  bit  of  change.  In  this  world,  you 
know,  things  are  not  always  what  they  seem,  and  the 
fellow  who  looks  the  wisest  and  talks  the  loudest  isn't 
the  smartest  any  more  than  the  man  with  the  retreat- 
ing forehead  is  the  stupidest.  The  one  with  the  cran- 
ium of  a  cocoanut  may  have  spent  all  of  his  life  de- 
veloping the  instinct  of  the  hunter  and  the  cunning 
of  the  fox,  and  that  queer-shaped  thing  on  top  of 
his  shoulders  is  the  sign  which  he  has  hung  out  and 
which  says  as  plainly  as  if  the  words  were  printed 
on  his  forehead :  "Come  on,  boys,  I'm  easy ;  come 
and  get  my  change."  I  know  all  about  this  and  speak 
from  experience,  for  I  used  to  sit  in  a  poker  game 
with  a  Dutchman  who  looked  like  a  pinhead,  and 
when  the  rest  of  us  walked  home  he  used  to  take  a 
cab,  because  he  had  all  the  money,  and  his  name  was 
Schneider,  too.     What  do  you  think  of  that? 

So  before  a  week  had  gone  by,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ben- 
jamin F.  Van  Buren  were  nodding  and  saying  "How 
do  you  do?"  and  "Good  morning"  and  "Good  even- 
ing" to  about  twenty  or  thirty  men  who  made  the 
hotel  their  headquarters.  Incidentally  it  was  given 
out  that  Ben  was  on  here  to  buy  some  machinery 
for  one  of  his  mines  in  Nevada  and  that  he  wouldn't 
mind  having  a  little  fun  with  anything  that  came 
along  so  long  as  the  stakes  were  not  too  big  for  a 
man  of  his  modest  disposition. 


CHEYENNE    NELL;     TRIMMER  141 

The  tip  went  down  the  line  in  the  usual  channels 
and  then  one  rainy  night  a  man  who  said  confidential- 
ly that  he  was  a  banker  suggested  that  as  there  was 
nothing  else  to  do  Mr.  Van  Buren  could,  if  he  felt 
so  disposed,  walk  around  to  his  hotel  where  there 
were  two  or  three  other  good  fellows,  and  they  might 
have  a  little  game  of  draw. 

"None  of  us  want  to  go  into  big  money,  you  know," 
he  said,  apologetically,  "for  it's  simply  a  game  among 
friends  and  it's  about  as  good  a  way  to  pass  the  time 
away  as  I  know  of.  We  don't,  as  a  rule,  play  with 
strangers,  but  I  guess  you're  all  right,  so  come  along." 

"Look  out  for  a  cold  deck,  Ben,"  whispered  Nell  as 
he  started;  "play  light  and  close  to  your  skin  at  the 
go-off,  and  it  won't  hurt  to  lose  a  little  at  the  start." 

Wherever  you  go  or  whatever  you  do  in  this  world, 
always  take  a  woman's  tip — not  the  tip  of  every  wom- 
an of  course,  but  when  you  find  one  who  delivers  the 
goods  at  every  jump  out  of  the  box  and  calls  the  turn 
on  the  case  card  nine  times  out  of  every  ten,  then  be 
wise  and  attune  your  ears  to  her  siren  song,  even 
though  the  notes  seem  to  be  a  bit  cracked  at  first  and 
the  cadenzas  strike  you  as  being  skewed  and  off  the 
key. 

There  were  five  in  the  game,  counting  Ben,  and  up 
against  the  wall,  like  a  new  kind  of  decoration,  was  a 
Senegambian,  whose  business  it  was  to  see  that  the 
gentlemen  had  cigars  to  smoke  and  wine  to  drink 
without  limit.  Between  deals  they  talked  about  busi- 
ness, how  stocks  were  selling,  what  chance  there  was 
for  a  flyer  in  Steel,  and  if  Depew  intended  to  resign 
from  the  Senate  or  not.    The  play  was  light  and  reck- 


1 42  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

less  and  no  one  there  seemed  to  care  whether  he  won 
or  lost. 

"We  play  two  or  three  times  a  week,"  explained 
one  to  Ben,  while  the  African  was  getting  a  fresh 
pack,  "and  I  consider  poker  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world  to  take  a  man's  mind  off  his  business.  Is  there 
any  stock  in  your  mine  for  sale?  I  wouldn't  mind 
taking  a  block  if  it  looked  right.  So  this  is  your  first 
visit  here?  Well,  we'll  try  and  make  it  pleasant  for 
you  while  you  stay,  but  you  must  reciprocate  if  we  ever 
hit  your  country.     Will  you  show  us  some  shooting?" 

It  went  that  way  until  Ben  got  to  feeling  a  little 
easy  in  his  play  himself.  But  he  couldn't  lose.  Every- 
thing came  his  way,  including  jackpots,  and  when 
the  silvery  chimes  of  the  clock  on  the  mantel  re- 
minded them  that  it  was  one  o'clock  the  play  came  to 
an  end  and  the  man  from  the  West  cashed  in  a  mat- 
ter of  §72. 

"It  was  only  a  friendly  game,  Nell,"  he  said,  when 
he  woke  her  up  from  a  sound  sleep  half  an  hour 
later.  "They  are  simply  a  lot  of  good  fellows  and 
I  couldn't  help  winning,  but  they  want  revenge  to- 
morrow night  and  then  I'll  get  some  real  money." 

"Three  thousand  miles  is  a  good  long  walk,  Ben," 
she  said,  "and  that's  a  little  tune  you  want  to  keep 
humming  to  yourself  all  the  time.  The  easy  marks  at 
cards  all  died  during  the  time  of  the  big  wind  and 
only  the  fly  guys  are  left.  You're  in  a  strange  barn  this 
trip,  so  don't  think  that  everything  you  see  is  hay." 

From  playing  three  nights  a  week  they  got  down  to 
playing  every  night,  and  Ben  always  came  back  with 
a  small  winning,  but  he  wasn't  getting  the  money 
he  was  after  and  it  got  on  his  nerves. 


CHEYENNE    NELL;    TRIMMER  143 

"It's  only  chicken  feed  I'm  winning,"  he  complained 
to  her  one  night,  "and  it  just  about  pays  expenses." 

"Well,  just  you  keep  your  shirt  on,  for  I'm  in  with 
some  nice  old  dames  who  think  they  are  the  real  ones 
at  bridge,  and  I'm  thinking  of  getting  a  little  of  that 
same  kind  of  feed  myself — the  real  killing  will  come 
later.  You  never  want  to  be  in  a  hurry  about  those 
things,  you  know,  because  if  you  hurry  them  it's  all 
off.  Get  those  fellows  to  play  up  in  the  room  some 
night  so  I  can  look  them  over  and  see  their  style." 

"I'm  next  to  their  play  all  right,"  he  said,  "They'll 
stand  to  lose  so  much  and  no  more  and  there  ain't  one 
of  them  who  would  bet  a  thousand  that  he  was  alive." 

"Invite  them  up,  anyway.  You've  been  drinking 
their  booze  and  smoking  their  good  cigars  long 
enough.  You  ought  to  put  up  for  them  once  in  a 
while,  and  if  they  are  all  right  you  will  have  a  few 
decent   friends,   anyhow." 

That's  how  it  happened  that  the  play  came  off  in 
No.  723. 

It  was  the  smallest  kind  of  a  small  and  inoffensive 
game,  unmarked  by  any  incident  or  episode  until  one  of 
the  men,  looking  his  hand  over  with  unusual  care,  re- 
marked  in   the   most   casual   manner   possible : 

"If  I  had  the  nerve  I  have  a  hand  here  that  I  would 
like  to  bet  big  on." 

"How  big?"  asked  Ben,  taking  another  look  at  the 
cards  that  had  been  dealt  to  him. 

"I  don't  know  much  about  poker,  but  I  think  a 
thousand  would  be  about  right  to  start  with." 

"Mine  looks  worth  that  much  to  me,"  said  Ben, 
with  his  face  like  a  mask. 


i44  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"I'm  game ;  does  a  check  go  ?" 

Over  in  one  corner  of  the«room,  with  a  novel  before 
her,  sat  Nell.  She  was  almost  directly  opposite  Ben, 
and  as  he  looked  up  he  saw  the  upper  lid  of  her  left 
eye  droop  slowly,  recover,  and  then  droop  again.  He 
skinned  his  cards  and  looked  them  carefully  over.  The 
pips  showed  four  kings  and  an  ace,  pat.  It  was  worth 
big  money  in  any  four-handed  game,  and  he  knew  it. 

"Does  a  check  go?"  came  the  query  again. 

"No,  I  weaken;  I  thought  I  had  a  better  hand. 
You've  got  me  beat  from  the  start." 

It  might  be  made  a  long  story  from  this  point  on, 
but  there  is  not  room  here  to  tell  in  detail  how  half 
an  hour  later  Nell  rose  from  her  comfortable  seat  in 
the  armchair  in  the  corner,  and  walking  over  to  the 
table  manifested  a  slight  interest  in  the  game,  and 
after  one  or  two  more  hands  had  been  dealt,  thought 
she  would  like  to  play  if  the  gentlemen  didn't  object, 
which  they  didn't.  How  she  played  like  any  woman 
would  be  expected  to  play,  losing  angrily  and  win- 
ning sweetly,  until  on  one  of  her  deals,  Ben  found 
himself  in  possession  of  a  hand  which  only  needed  the 
ace  to  make  a  royal  flush.  The  limit  was  raised  be- 
fore the  draw,  then  taken  off  altogether,  and  the 
money  began  to  pile  itself  on  the  mahogany.  Then 
they  drew  for  cards,  and  when  Ben  looked  things 
over  he  found  in  his  one  card  draw  the  ace  that  made 
his  hand  good. 

"Mine  is  worth  $500,"  remarked  the  player  opposite 
him. 

"I'll  kiss  mine  good-bye,"  said  Nell,  as  she  dropped 
her  pasteboards  in  the  discard. 


CHEYENNE    NELL;     TRIMMER  145 

"Raise  you  $500,"  put  in  Ben,  looking  at  the  first 
bettor. 

"Five  hundred  more,"  was  the  third  man's  bid. 

"It's  too  hot  for  me,"  was  the  comment  of  the 
fourth,  as  he  pushed  his  cards  away  from  him. 

It  was  raised  in  jumps  of  $500  until  there  was 
about  $11,000  up,  and  Ben  had  been  boosting  every 
raise  as  fast  as  it  came  to  him. 

Then  the  call  was  made  and  the  show-down  was 
worth  going  miles  to  see,  for  the  battle  at  the  finish 
had  narrowed  down  to  Ben  and  one  other. 

"Take  a  check  for  the  next  bet?"  asked  the  other. 

"No,"  came  the  terse  answer. 

"Then  I'll  have  to  call  you.  But  I've  got  you 
beaten !" 

For  answer  Ben  spread  out  his  invincibles. 

For  a  moment  the  silence  was  painful. 

"Are  they  good?"  asked  Ben. 

"You  know  damned  well  they  are,"  came  the  an- 
swer. 

Then  Mr.  Benjamin  Van  Buren,  mining  engineer, 
of  Portland,  Ore.,  gathered  in  the  oof  in  the  most 
leisurely   manner   possible. 

"Now  you  can  buy  me  that  new  hat  you  promised 
me,   can't  you,   Ben?"   said   Nellie. 

"I  sure  can  buy  you  a  dozen  hats  now  if  you  want 
them." 

Exactly  thirty  minutes  later  three  men  were  lined 
up  against  the  bar  below. 

"You  can  talk  from  here  to  the  Coast,  if  you  want 
to,"  said  one,  "but  I  tell  you  the  woman  did  the  trick. 
Didn't  she  deal  the  cards  ?  I  tell  you  she  short-carded 
us.     She's  a  gold  mine." 


She  had  one  or  two  fights  on  her  hands,  but  she  always  won  out 


TRAGEDY  OF  A  DANCE 

It  was  just  a  plain  unpretentious  flat  in  New  York, 
the  kind  that  is  rented  for  about  $40  a  month.  You 
know  the  style — four  or  five  rooms  and  bath  and  a 
narrow  little  space  which  is  dignified  by  the  name  of 
private  hall,  and  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  real  thing 
in  living  apartments.  It  was  furnished  in  the  way  in 
which  anyone  would  expect,  and  an  auction  sale 
wouldn't  net  more  than  $50  for  everything  that  was 
there. 

In  the  front  room  sat  a  man  who  wasn't  as  old  as  he 
looked,  but  whose  apparent  age  was  caused  by  ten 
hours  a  day  in  an  attempt  to  make  a  living  for  himself. 
For  twenty  years  he  had  been  ground  down  by  fate, 
and  at  the  end  of  it  all  he  had  nothing,  and  he  was 
in  debt  to  the  world  for  exactly  three  score  of  years. 

Now  at  the  last  mile  post  he  had  come  face  to  face 
with  a  tragedy. 

In  one  calloused  hand  he  held  a  telegram.  In  the 
other  was  the  photograph  of  a  girl — good  looking  in  a 
way,  saucy,  blue-eyed  and  blonde.  It  had  been  taken 
in  theatrical  costume  and  that  told  half  of  the  story. 
The  other  half  was  in  the  telegram. 

He  wiped  his  eyes  with  the  back  of  his  hand  and 
read  again : 

"Your  daughter  died  in  the  hospital  here  to-day; 
please  advise  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  remains." 

It  bore  date  of  a  Southern  city,  and  was  signed  by 


148  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

the  manager  of  a  barn-storming  company  of  show 
people. 

If  you  read  the  newspapers  you  must  have  read  part 
of  the  story.  You  will  read  the  rest  of  it  here — the 
part  that  wasn't  told,  because  an  ordinary  chorus  girl 
isn't  of  sufficient  importance  to  take  up  more  than  a 
very  little  space  in  the  prints,  unless,  of  course,  she 
does  something  so  violently  tragic  and  sensational  that 
she  rises  above  the  common  herd  and  becomes  at 
once  a  figure  of  almost  national  importance,  like  the 
young  woman  who  once  tried  to  shoot  a  senator,  or  the 
one  who  danced  nude  before  a  select  company  of 
young  spendthrifts,  or  the  one  who  made  $50,000  in 
stocks  with  the  kind  assistance  of  a  "gentleman  friend." 

Just  four  months  before,  the  old  man's  daughter  had 
been  working  in  a  big  dry  goods  store — a  mill  that 
grinds  pretty  fine  sometimes — and  one  day  she  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  a  man  who  was  putting  a  show 
out  on  the  Southern  tour.  He  saw  talent  in  her,  or  at 
least  he  thought  he  did,  but  if  the  truth  were  to  be  told 
he  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  she  would  make  a  better  traveling  companion 
than  anyone  he  had  seen  so  far — this  season.  He  had 
a  code  of  morals  that  was  iron  clad,  but  wouldn't  stand 
investigating.  In  his  eyes  they  were  all  cattle,  and 
like  cattle  he  graded  them. 

But  this  isn't  going  to  be  a  moral  story,  because  it 
is  the  truth. 

If  you  want  morality  nowadays  you  will  have  to  go 
to  fiction,  where  the  man  always  marries  the  girl  and 
they  live  happily  ever  after.  It  sounds  nice  and  leaves 
a  sweet  taste  in  the  mouth,  but  it  is  a  long  cry  from 
the  truth  except  in  a  few  rare  cases. 


TRAGEDY    OF    A    DANCE  149 

So  here's  the  picture,  about  as  commonplace  as  it 
can  be  made. 

A  girl  with  visions  of  the  stage,  a  dream  of  a  life  of 
ease  and  luxury,  imagining  that  some  day  she  will  be  a 
performer  of  merit;  a  violent  hatred  of  the  unending 
routine  of  the  store,  and  ready  at  a  moment's  notice 
to  turn  her  back  on  the  old  man  in  the  flat. 

Isn't  that  the  way? 

Bring  them  into  the  world,  care  for  them  and  nurse 
them.  Worry  over  their  little  troubles,  deny  yourself 
that  they  may  have  more;  sacrifice  everything  for 
their  happiness,  and  then  at  the  critical  moment  when 
they  might  become  a  comfort  instead  of  a  care,  presto ! 
along  comes  a  man  with  a  line  of  talk  that  would 
make  a  cat  on  a  back  yard  fence  take  to  cover,  and  away 
they  go,  saying  good-by  if  they  happen  to  think  of  it, 
and  forgetting  that  there  are  such  things  in  the  world 
as  obligation  or  gratitude. 

But  this  isn't  really  what  I  started  to  say.  You  see, 
I  have  a  brother  who  is  a  minister,  and  I  am  under 
the  impression  that  he  is  teaching  me  bad  habits — 
that  is,  if  it  is  a  bad  habit  to  sit  down  and  preach  about 
a  lot  of  things  that  are  wrong  when  you  would  prob- 
ably do  the  same  things  you  condemn  in  others.  It's 
a  case  of  don't  do  as  I  do,  but  do  as  I  say. 

It's  a  cinch  to  tell  other  people  to  do  the  right  thing, 
but  it's  another  thing  to  be  on  the  level  yourself. 

After  that  little  digression  I'll  show  you  this  girl  on 
the  road  singing  choruses  with  the  bunch,  and  just  a 
bit  swell-headed  because  she  was  in  a  position  to  call 
the  manager  by  his  first  name.  That  didn't  help  her 
with  the  rest  of  the  crowd  any,  and  they  called  her 
names  when  they  were  where  she  couldn't  hear  them, 


150  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

while  at  the  same  time  there  wasn't  one  of  them  who 
wouldn't  have  changed  places  with  her  in  a  holy 
minute. 

She  had  one  or  two  fights  on  her  hands,  but  she 
always  won  out. 

The  manager  found  out  she  had  a  figure  that  would 
have  been  worth  a  place  in  the  front  row  of  the  merry- 
merry  of  Weber  and  Fields  when  that  firm  was  at  its 
best.  Here  was  a  chance  that  a  good,  clever,  astute 
fellow  like  him  couldn't  very  well  overlook,  and  he  pro- 
ceeded to  have  her  taught  a  few  dances  of  the  kind  that 
are  not  sanctioned  in  polite  society,  or  even  on  the 
stage,  or  which  make  any  pretence  to  being  legiti- 
mate. He  was  working  on  the  principle  that  all  is 
grist  that  comes  to  the  mill,  and  he  was  also  looking 
ahead. 

There  are,  as  a  rule,  a  pretty  gay  lot  of  boys  in  those 
Southern  towns,  and  they  are  not  averse  to  paying  a 
good  bit  of  money  for  a  show  after  the  show,  especially 
if  it  is  the  kind  that  is  forbidden.  If  the  sensuous 
dance  of  the  Nautch  girl  can  be  imitated  in  all  of  its 
windings,  twistings  and  quiverings  by  a  shapely  Amer- 
ican girl  whose  disregard  for  clothing  amounts  to  al- 
most contempt — that  is,  on  certain  occasions — there  is 
enough  money  to  make  it  an  object  not  only  for  the 
performer  but  the  manager. 

"I  am  going  to  put  you  up  against  a  proposition  that 
will  make  the  hit  of  your  life,"  was  the  way  he  started 
it. 

"That's  me,"  she  said;  "what  is  it?" 

"Why,  do  a  stunt  in  the  altogether  for  the  sports." 
Then  he  took  a  couple  of  extra  puffs  at  his  cigar  to 
keep  his  nerve  up. 


TRAGEDY    OF    A    DANCE  151 

"The  altogether— what's  that?" 

She  had  an  idea  what  it  was,  but  she  wanted  to  get 
it  straight. 

"Oh,  it's  all  the  rage  down  here — you  dance  without 
much  clothes  on.  All  the  girls  are  wild  to  get  some  of 
the  money,  but  there's  nothing  doing  with  them,  for 
your  figure  will  make  them  look  like  a  lot  of  kippered 
herrings  that's  been  smoked  for  a  week.  You  fee, 
we're  in  this  business  for  the  coin,  and  we  might  as 
well  get  it  and  get  it  quick.  If  we  don't  there'll  be  a 
thousand  others  after  it.  It's  a  case  of  take  it  or  leave  it 
and  it's  up  to  you.    How  about  it?" 

He  stiffened  her  up  so  she  was  willing  to  make  good. 
He  told  her  she  had  enough  curves  to  make  the  Venus 
de  Medici  look  like  a  barn  door,  and  that  she  was  a 
peach  with  the  original  bloom  on,,  all  of  which  she 
believed  because  it  was  pleasant  for  her  to  hear,  and 
was  getting  a  bit  stuck  on  herself.  It  was  a  modern 
case  of  showing  Eve  all  over  again  where  the  golden 
apple  grew,  and  inducing  her  to  reach  up  and  get  it. 

The  first  trick  was  to  come  off  at  Memphis,  Tenn., 
where  a  lot  of  hot  sports  wanted  something  so  full  of 
ginger  that  they  would  have  put  ice  on  the  backs  of 
their  necks  to  keep  the  temperature  down  below  the 
100  mark.  A  committee  of  two  called  on  him  at  the 
stage  entrance,  and  after  declaring  themselves  asked 
him  if  he  had  anybody  with  the  outfit  who  could  make 
good.  After  the  preliminary  skirmish  it  settled  down 
to  a  question  of  price,  and  the  matter  was  soon  ar- 
ranged, and  half  an  hour  later  Daddy's  girl  got  the  tip 
that  she  was  expected  to  be  on  the  job  when  the  clock 
struck  twelve,  with  a  carriage  to  and  from  the  hotel 
as  a  compliment  to  her  superb  figure. 


152  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

No  good  hardened  old  pelter  would  have  halted  at 
this  hurdle,  and  would  have  gone  at  it  with  a  keen 
relish,  but  you  must  know  that  this  was  the  first  season 
out  for  this  girl,  and  when  it  came  to  the  time  that 
she  was  to  let  go  all  that  kept  her  from  appearing  in 
the  costume  that  Mother  Eve  is  supposed  to  have  worn 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  she  promptly  lost  her  nerve. 

"I  don't  think  I  can  do  this  thing,  Jim,"  she  re- 
marked to  the  manager  as  they  were  leaving  the 
theatre  together.  "It  didn't  seem  so  bad  at  first,  but 
now  I  don't  quite  like  the  idea  of  it.  I  never  did  any- 
thing like   this  before,   you   know." 

"Of  course  I  know,"  he  answered  quickly,  "but  you 
want  the  money,  don't  you?  Do  you  want  to  be  a 
piker  all  your  life?  Why,  you'll  get  more  for  a  stunt 
like  this  than  you  can  make  in  a  month  doing  anything 
else.    Just  think  of  that." 

He  was  keen  enough  to  see,  however,  that  she  was 
inclined  to  quit  at  any  moment,  but  there  was  no  propo- 
sition an  old  seasoned  campaigner  like  him  couldn't 
handle,  and  when  they  went  into  the  hotel  cafe  to- 
gether he  had  framed  things  up  to  his  own  satisfaction. 

"I'm  going  to  blow  you  to  a  bottle  of  wine  to-night, 
and  while  we're  waiting  for  it  we'll  have  a  cocktail." 

He  figured  on  dulling  her  sense  of  morality  with 
drinks,  and  he  went  at  it  in  the  most  businesslike 
manner  possible. 

Before  the  wine  a  cocktail  with  a  cherry,  then  an- 
other cocktail.  Three  pints  of  extra  dry,  most  of 
which  she  lapped  up  simply  because  it  was  champagne 
and  was  expensive,  and  then  she  was  in  a  mood  that 
was  at  once  mellow  and  reckless. 

"Come  on,"  he  said,  when  the  last  drop  had  been 


TRAGEDY    OF    A    DANCE  153 

drained.  "Come  on,  the  wagon  is  waiting  and  if  you 
make  a  hit  you  won't  need  to  bother  about  those  new 
dresses  you  wanted  last  week,  for  here  is  where  you 
get  next  to  a  real  gold  mine.  Why,  there  ain't  a  girl 
in  the  show  that  wouldn't  go  to  the  deuce  to  get  this 
chance." 

She  assented,  but  through  it  all  she  had  a  hazy  idea 
that  it  was  wrong  and  that  she  ought  to  back  out.  But 
just  think  of  almost  three  pints  of  wine  seething  and 
bubbling  inside  of  her  while  she  is  trying  to  discrimi- 
nate between  right  and  wrong.  I  tell  you  it's  impossi- 
ble, for  when  the  corks  pop  often  enough  it's  hell  let 
loose,  and  a  girl  has  to  protect  herself  in  the  breakaway 
every  time,  with  the  odds  against  her. 

And  now,  a  big  room,  carpeted,  with  palms  on  ped- 
estals here  and  there,  giving  it  an  air  of  luxury,  and  a 
platform  at  one  end.  Fifty  men,  young  and  old,  seated 
in  chairs  that  were  lined  up  like  a  regiment  were  wait- 
ing expectantly.  The  smoke  from  many  cigars  and 
cigarettes  filled  the  air,  and  the  monologue  man  who 
was  trying  to  interest  them  with  funny  stories  knew  he 
was  up  against  it  and  that  he  was  only  filling  in  time 
until  the  big  show  should  be  ready.  He  told  every- 
thing he  knew,  but  never  a  smile  was  cracked,  and 
when  he  came  to  a  finish  he  walked  off  angrily. 

The  three  musicians  began  a  new  tune  with  mourn- 
ful cadences,  but  with  a  swing  that  suggested  sinuous 
movements.  The  two  violins  wailed  out  the  minor 
chords,  and  the  piano  trailed  the  bass.  Somewhere 
from  behind  came  the  sharp  snap  of  a  man's  fingers 
and  the  lights  went  down  and  the  theme  of  the  music 
was  changed. 

"The  Dance  of  the  Dawn,  gentlemen,"  came  a  voice 


154  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

from  out  of  the  darkness  and  the  fifty  straightened  up 
in  their  seats  expectantly. 

A  shape  crept  out  upon  the  stage  and  moved  in  time 
to  the  music.  Then  the  lights  gradually  began  to  go 
up  a  little  at  a  time  until  at  last  the  face  and  figure  of 
the  dancer  were  visible!  She  was  clad  in  transparent 
gauze,  with  Turkish  trousers  and  a  bolero  to  match, 
and  her  swayings  were  artistic  and  graceful.  But  there 
was  no  reason  in  them.  They  were  mechanical  and 
lifeless.  She  moved  by  instinct  and  intuition  and  the 
impression  the  dance  sought  to  convey  was  lost.  The 
manager  himself  worked  the  cymbals  which  punctu- 
ated the  finish  of  each  measure,  and  at  the  final  crash 
the  stage  was  once  more  shrouded  in  darkness. 

Lights  up  and  then  the  second  announcement: 

'The  Dance  of  Nature." 

That  soothing  music  was  born  in  the  brain  of  a  Cal- 
cutta idealist  who  knew  how  to  put  the  tip  of  his  fin- 
ger on  the  pulse  of  the  senses.  Three  second-rate  per- 
formers ground  it  out,  but  with  all  their  mediocrity 
they  couldn't  kill  its  charm,  even  though  they  dulled 
it  somewhat. 

Here  was  the  real  thing  at  last,  and  fifty  pairs  of 
eyes  were  glistening  in  anticipation. 

The  moment's  wait  seemed  like  an  hour,  and  then  a 
girl's  voice  broke  what  seemed  to  be  a  spell : 

"Oh,  I  can't,  Jim,  I  can't." 

"You've  got  to,  it's  too  late  to  back  out  now." 

"I  won't,  I  tell  you,  not  for  anybody." 

The  next  instant  the  nude  figure  of  the  girl  was 
catapulted  out  upon  the  platform — a  figure  which 
dropped  to  its  knees  and  then  tumbled  over  on  its  face 
and  lay  there  in  a  quivering  heap  sobbing  violently. 


TRAGEDY    OF    A    DANCE  155 

A  tall  man  with  snow-white  mustache  rose  slowly 
from  his  seat  in  the  second  row.  He  turned  around  to 
face  the  rest,  and  then  said,  as  calmly  as  if  he  were  in 
his  own  house : 

"Gentlemen,  I  protest;  this  must  not  go  on.  It  is 
disgraceful.,, 

He  picked  up  his  hat  and  coat  and  started  for  the 
door. 

In  five  minutes  the  room  was  empty.  The  girl  had 
been  pulled  back  of  the  scenes  by  a  cursing  manager, 
but  she  might  as  well  have  been  dumb  for  all  she  heard. 

"You're  a  mutt,"  he  was  saying;  "here  you've  had 
your  chance  and  quit,  and  you've  made  a  sucker  out  of 
me,  too.  I  can't  look  any  of  those  people  in  the  face 
again." 

Of   course,   he   didn't   consider   where   she   figured. 

Then  he  walked  out  and  left  her  there  with  a  skirt 
wrapped  around  her  as  her  only  covering. 

The  janitor  found  her  when  he  came  to  turn  out  the 
lights. 

She  was  partly  dressed  then,  and  shivering.  He 
helped  her  finish  dressing,  and  then  he  went  out  to 
get  her  a  drink  to  warm  her  up  a  bit 

Later  she  wandered  out  and  got  another  drink  to 
make  her  forget  and  still  another  that  her  mind  might 
be  blank. 

At  daybreak  she  was  in  the  hospital  in  a  state  of 
coma  from  which  nothing  could  rouse  her.  She  never 
came  back  again,  and  when  the  call-boy  in  the  theatre 
in  the  next  town  was  calling  out :  "Fifteen  minutes — 
first  act,"  she  died. 

Yet  his  friends  say  the  manager  is  one  of  the  best 
fellows  in  the  business. 


She  had  danced  the  fandango  in  a  way  that  made  the  Mexicans  cheer 


THE  MONOLOGUE  GIRL'S  STORY 

It  was  after  the  show  that  there  were  four  of  us 
sitting  at  the  round  table  in  the  back  room  of  The 
Dutchman's  on  Third  avenue.  It's  a  pretty  good 
place,  that  self-same  back  room,  and  the  big  steins  of 
beer  are  pretty  good,  too,  with  a  heaping  plate  of 
pretzels  always  on  the  side  and  a  sandwich  to  be  had 
by  pressing  the  button. 

There  was  Al  Fostell,  the  German  comedian,  who 
ought  to  have  been  in  the  legitimate  long  ago ;  Harry 
Ferguson,  famous  for  his  impersonation  of  Happy 
Hooligan;  Harry's  wife,  Lulu  Beeson,  the  Star  of 
Texas,  and  so  great  a  dancer  that  she  has  a  Richard 
K.  Fox  medal  about  as  long  as  her  arm,  which  any 
beskirted  performer  can  get  by  beating  her  at  the 
soft  shoe  buck ;  and  one  other,  whom  I  shall  simply 
designate  as  The  Girl,  because,  even  though  she  plays 
a  star  part  in  this,  she  doesn't  want  to  be  known  to 
the  general  public. 

The  Girl  was  brilliant,  versatile  and  clever.  She 
took  it  into  her  head  to  become  a  dancer  once,  and 
among  other  things  she  learned  the  fandango.  She 
went  to  Mexico  with  a  troupe  and  danced  that  fa- 
mous measure  in  a  way  that  made  them  cheer  her  to 
the  echo.  She  played  faro  bank  and  won  enough  to 
keep  her  in  clothes  for  a  year. 

The  talk  had  drifted  on  marriage  and  Fostell  started 
things. 


158  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"I  have  been  married  a  good  many  years,  more  than 
I  care  to  tell,"  he  said,  "and  I  have  been  trying  to 
induce  my  daughter  to  call  me  uncle  so  they  won't 
get  on  to  me.  I  claim  that  a  performer's  domestic  life 
can  be  just  as  pure  and  happy  as  that  of  a  business 
man.  I  agree  that  there  is  a  lot  of  immorality  in  the 
profession,  but  you'll  always  find  a  lot  of  outsiders 
helping  things  along.  There  are  times  when  we  seem 
to  be  targets  for  the  whole  world  to  shoot  at." 

"In  my  opinion,"  put  in  Ferguson,  "the  performers 
who  are  in  the  business  to  make  a  living  on  their 
merits  are  for  the  most  part  decent  people  whose  lives 
are  an  open  book.  The  women  of  the  chorus  of  the 
big  shows  on  Broadway — the  kind  who  haven't  a  line 
to  speak  and  who  couldn't  speak  it  if  they  had — are 
responsible  in  the  main  for  all  of  these  sweeping 
charges  of  immorality.  Our  children  are  born  in  the 
shadow  of  the  theatre,  and  a  great  part  of  their  lives 
are  spent  in  the  green  rooms  and  dressing  rooms.  We 
try  to  do  the  best  we  can  by  them  and  bring  them 
up  properly." 

Then  The  Girl,  who  can  tell  stories  and  sing  in  a 
most  charming  way,  and  who  for  that  reason  has  a 
salary  that  is  worth  considering,  broke  in: 

"You  men  with  wives  sit  back  and  talk  of  morality 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing  and  you  don't  know  what  it 
means.  You  two  are  lucky  because  you  have  married 
good  women  who  look  after  your  interests  and  bring 
your  children  up  as  best  they  can  under  the  circum- 
stances. You  only  see  things  from  the  viewpoint  of 
the  male  animal,  who  is  used  to  being  waited  on  and 
catered  to.  The  average  man  says,  'I  am  handsome/ 
T  am  great,'  T  am  distinguished,'  or  'I  am  the  real 


THE    MONOLOGUE    GIRL'S    STORY  159 

one,'  as  the  case  may  be.  He  sees  a  girl  whose  ap- 
pearance catches  his  fancy  and  straightway  he  must 
have  her.  He  likes  her  and  that  settles  it.  It  makes 
no  difference  whether  or  not  she  likes  him — her  feel- 
ings are  not  to  be  considered.  He  is  the  one.  If  his 
passion  is  a  strong  one  he  pursues  her  to  the  finish 
and  hounds  her.  If  she  still  holds  out  he  becomes 
actuated  by  a  motive  of  revenge  and  so  he  sets  out  to 
try  to  injure  her,  to  prevent  her  from  making  a  living 
that:  she  may  feel  the  pinch  of  poverty.  He  uses  all 
the  influence  at  his  command  to  crush  and  humiliate 
her,  and  then  he  taunts  her. 

"Boys,  I've  been  through  the  mill  and  I  know  what 
I'm  talking  about.  I'm  a  kid  no  longer,  and  I  wouldn't 
marry  the  best  man  on  earth,  nor  tie  myself  up  to  him 
for  either  a  definite  or  an  indefinite  length  of  time. 
No  double  acts  for  me,  but  monologues  from  now  on 
until  I  get  my  23. 

"Let  me  tell  you  something  you  never  heard  before. 

"One  night  I  went  down  to  the  Battery  and  sat  on 
the  sea  wall  there  for  hours  looking  at  the  water 
smashing  away  at  the  rocks.  It  was  moonlight  and 
almost  bright  enough  to  read  a  paper.  I  had  enough 
to  think  of  while  I  was  sitting  there  and  I  thought  it, 
too.  I  know  what  it  is  to  have  a  whirring  sound  in 
your  brain,  for  I  had  it  then.  I  was  trying  to  get  up 
enough  courage  to  throw  myself  overboard,  for  I 
really  wanted  to  die.  I  had  seen  all  of  life  and  of  men 
that  I  wanted  and  had  enough.  I  had  been  driven  by 
a  man  from  the  place  where  J  lived  to  the  jumping- 
off  spot  as  coldly,  and  calmly,  and  deliberately  as  a 
drover  would  direct  the  course  of  a  steer  to  the  abat- 
toir.    He  had  made  living  impossible  for  me. 


160  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

'"Those  noises  in  my  head  had  reached  that  stage 
where  they  were  like  the  sound  of  the  L  road  trains 
going  past  your  windows  at  night  when  you're  trying 
to  sleep,  but  the  stronger  they  grew  the  less  they  an- 
noyed me,  and  the  idea  came  to  me  that  if  I  wished 
hard  enough  death  would  come  very  easy. 

"You  know  that  old  act  of  mine  where  I  used  to 
imitate  a  woman  who  had  gone  insane  from  grief  at 
being  abandoned  by  her  lover  ?  You  know  what  a  hit 
it  always  made.  Well,  it's  nothing  like  the  real  thing. 
Heart-breaking  grief  in  its  highest  form  is  quiet.  It 
doesn't  want  the  limelight  or  stage  center,  but  a  dark 
corner  and  seclusion.     It  wants  to  be  left  alone. 

"The  next  thing  I  remember  was  someone  saying 
to  me  'Come  out  of  here ;  what  are  you  trying  to  do — 
drown  yourself?' 

"And  there  I  was  in  the  water  up  to  my  waist  with 
a  policeman  holding  me  by  the  arm.  He  turned  me 
around  so  that  I  faced  the  wall  again  and  we  walked 
back  to  where  he  helped  me  up.  Then  he  took  me, 
all  dripping  and  so  cold  that  I  had  no  feeling  at  all, 
to  the  station  house,  where  I  was  charged,  under  a  most 
absurd  law,  with  attempted  suicide.  They  were  humane 
enough  to  send  for  an  ambulance  and  I  was  taken 
to  the  hospital  and  fixed  up  so  I  could  appear  in  court 
the  next  morning.  The  man  was  there — the  man  with 
his  sneering  smile  and  his  air  of  well-fed  comfort.  He 
had  come  down  to  look  me  over.  He  probably  wanted 
to  see  the  girl  who  had  refused  nearly  everything  that 
money  could  get,  simply  because  she  was  not  for  sale 
and  couldn't  be  bought  like  a  new  scarf  or  a  hat  of  the 
latest  mode.  He  also  wanted  to  parade  his  prosperity 
before  my  misery,  probably  that  before  anything  else. 


THE    MONOLOGUE    GIRL'S    STORY  161 

Even  he  must  have  pitied  me  because  of  my  position, 
and  he  edged  over  to  where  I  was  and  whispered : 
'  'It  isn't  too  late  yet,  and  I  want  to  help  you.' 
'  'You  mean  that  you  want  to  get  me  out  of  here  ?' 
I  asked. 

'  'Yes,'  he  said  eagerly,  'I  want  to  get  you  out.' 
"  'Well,  if  I  were  you,'  I  told  him,  'I  wouldn't  take 
any  chances  because  if  I  get  out  of  here  and  you  ever 
speak  to  me  again  I  will  do  the  very  best  I  can  to  kill 
you.' 

"He  shrank  back  as  if  he  had  been  stung,  and  so 
great  was  his  terror  that  I  almost  laughed  at  him. 
Then  he  turned  and  walked  away. 

"That  is  the  curtain  of  my  story.  I  could  begin  at 
the  beginning  and  make  it  a  long  one,  but  what's  the 
use?  I  could  make  a  romance  of  it,  or  even  a  tragedy, 
and  now  that  I  am  my  sane  self  I  could  even  make  it 
a  comedy.  I  could  go  over  the  list  of  things  he  prom- 
ised me  and  what  he  promised  to  do  for  me,  and  you 
would  think  he  had  all  the  wealth  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land at  his  back,  but  his  mind  ran  in  a  groove  so  nar- 
row and  his  manner  was  so  offensive  that  the  only 
thing  that  kept  him  in  the  human  being  class  was  the 
fact  that  his  nostrils  were  not  shaped  like  those  of  a 
swine,  and  that  instead  of  grunting  he  used  language 
that  was  fairly  intelligible.  But  for  once  he  was  top- 
pled from  his  self-built  pedestal  and  he  crashed  down 
in  the  wreck  of  his  own  self-conceit.  Men  like  that 
make  the  world  seem  immoral  and  immoral  in  fact, 
and  a  few  such  as  he  would  degrade  the  noblest  pro- 
fession in  the  world.  Egotists  and  atheists,  believing 
in  nothing  save  self,  they  taint  a  community  like  a 
plague. 


162  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Bring  us  some  more  beer,  Billy,  for  I'm  going 
home.     I'm  tired  and  dead  to  the  world." 

"I  wouldn't  like  to  be  the  man  you  hated,"  said 
Ferguson. 

"My  boy,  I  can  neither  hate  nor  love,  I  am  simply 
numb.  I  have  had  seven  proposals  of  marriage,  both 
in  the  profession  and  out  of  it,  but  there  was  nothing 
doing.  I  am  absolutely  emotionless.  I  ask  no  favors 
on  account  of  my  sex  and  I  owe  my  allegiance  to  no 
man.  But  I  am  watching  my  tormentor  growing 
gradually  old.  I  see  him  once  in  a  while,  you  know, 
and  I  am  keeping  track  of  him.  It's  my  one  joy  in 
life.  The  gray  has  come  into  his  hair  and  it  is  turning 
white  and  the  wrinkles  are  spreading  themselves  over 
his  face  like  avenging  fingers.  I  know  he  is  not 
really  happy,  although  he  pretends  to  be,  and  some 
day,  in  some  luxurious  apartment,  he'll  lie  dying.  A 
million  dollars  will  not  give  him  one  more  breath 
nor  would  a  hundred  millions  add  one  more  day  to 
his  existence,  and  when  he  is  very  close  to  that  gate 
which  always  opens  inward  and  from  which  there  is 
no  retreat  and  I  really  know  that  he  is  going,  then 
I  will  laugh :  not  the  kind  of  a  laugh  you  know,  boys, 
but  the  kind  of  a  laugh  that  follows  a  soul  across  the 
border  line  of  death  and  which  keeps  echoing  for 
ages." 

''"Did  you  ever  play  the  part  of  Ophelia?"  I  asked. 

"No,  but  I  could." 

And  we  all  believed  her. 


A  TWISTED  LOVE  AFFAIR 

This  is  the  story  of  a  wooing  that  went  astray. 

There  are  many  such  stories  floating  around,  and 
they  are  all  good,  if  they  could  only  be  told.  But 
there  is  the  trouble,  for,  like  family  skeletons,  they  are 
sunk  so  deep  in  the  cellar  or  locked  up  so  securely  in 
the  closet  that  there  is  no  getting  to  them,  even  for  a 
minute. 

How  these  two  met  or  where  they  met  is  of  no  ma- 
terial difference,  and  here  is  where  a  romantic  touch 
might  be  introduced.  The  truth  is  that  they  came  face 
to  face  with  each  other  on  the  boardwalk  at  Atlantic 
City.  He  had  been  up  to  old  Vienna  while  she  had 
taken  in  the  show  on  the  Pier.  A  dozen  or  more  of 
those  high  steins  of  Pilsner  had  made  him  a  bit  reck- 
less, and  that  was  his  only  excuse.  She  was  lonely, 
and  that  was  hers.  It's  a  great  combination,  like  gun- 
cotton  and  a  match.  All  right  apart,  but  let  them  meet 
and  the  result  is  pyrotechnical.  When  they  were 
twenty  feet  apart  there  was  a  sudden  flash  of  lightning 
of  the  vivid  brand  they  have  on  the  Jersey  shore,  fol- 
lowed by  a  crash  of  thunder  heavy  enough  to  make  a 
cigar  store  Indian  step  down  and  crawl  under  his 
pedestal.  Then  a  few  drops  of  rain  about  the  size  of 
a  quarter,  and  a  general  scurrying  for  shelter. 

The  man  whistled  for  a  covered  rolling  chair,  and 
the  girl  with  eyes  shut  and  head  down  ran  directly 
into  his  arms. 


Atlantic  City  is  the  place  for  sporty  girls  who  play  the  game  to  the  limit 


A     TWISTED    LOVE    AFFAIR  16.5 

She  recoiled  like  a  rubber  ball  that  has  been  thrown 
up  against  a  brick  wall,  while  he  felt  to  see  if  his  watch 
was  still  fast  in  the  mooring  at  his  vest. 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  and  she  gathered  up  her 
skirts  as  she  prepared  for  another  flight. 

"Don't  mention  it,"  he  answered  with  admiration, 
"but  I  think  you  could  beat  Jeffries  if  you  were  trained 
down  a  bit." 

"Sir!" 

"Now  don't  sir  me ;  it's  raining  and  that  blanket  of 
yours  won't  stand  water.  I've  an  option  on  the  only 
chair  in  sight.  It's  yours ;  help  yourself,  and  if  you 
don't  mind  I'll  go  as  far  as  my  hotel.  Are  you  on  the 
job?" 

"I  don't  think "  she  began  severely,  when  the 

lightning  broke  out  again  and  interrupted  her. 

"You  don't  have  to  think,"  he  said.  "Jump  in  and 
keep  out  of  the  wet.  People  don't  think  at  Atlantic 
City ;  they  get  on  the  job  quick,"  and  he  motioned  the 
walking  delegate  with  the  perambulator  to  move  up. 

"All  right,"  she  said,  resignedly. 

"Of  course  it's  all  right,  for  you  get  home  dry  while 
I  have  a  chance  to  meet  a  good  fellow.  Now  let's  in- 
troduce. My  name  is  Ben.  There's  another  part  to  it, 
but  it  don't  make  any  difference  here.  What's  yours?" 

"You  don't  lose  any  time,  do  you  ?" 

"Never  was  known  to  so  far.    Come  on,  what  is  it  ?" 

"Bess,"  she  answered. 

"Bess ;  great ;  sounds  like  a  sport.  Not  hard  to  say 
and  rhymes  with  'bless'  and  'yes'  and  a  lot  of  other 
words.  Now,  Bess,  you  and  I  are  going  to  have  one 
little  drink  just  to  celebrate.  You  know  the  old  saying 
— wet  out  and  wet  in.    The  wise  gink  who's  pushing 


166  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

this  van  is  heading  me  back  to  where  I  came  from,  I 
see;  Old  Vienna.  I  wonder  if  he  gets  a  commission? 
Just  because  I  like  you,  and  because  your  hair  matches 
my  tie  I'll  blow  you  to  anything  you  like  from  a  second- 
story  stein  up  to  a  bottle — large  or  small,  according  to 
your  capacity.    How  about  it?" 

"I  suppose  you  think  because  you  got  me  in  this 
absurd  wicker  basket  before  I  could  call  a  policeman 
and  have  you  arrested  for  insulting  me  that  any  prop- 
osition you  make  from  now  on  will  not  be  objected  to. 
Perhaps,  because  I  made  the  fatal  mistake  of  being 
alone  on  the  walk  at  night,  you,  too,  have  made  a 
mistake." 

"I  never  make  mistakes,  but  this  time  I  overlooked 
the  fact  that  I  am  hungry.  So  we'll  get  the  large 
bottle  and  something  to  eat  on  the  side  and  between 
drinks  we'll  tell  each  other  the  story  of  our  past  lives, 
and  we'll  make  a  bet  on  whose  is  the  best." 

Half  an  hour  later  they  were  like  a  couple  of  chums 
who  had  known  each  other  for  years,  and  she  was  call- 
ing him  Ben  as  if  she  had  been  raised  with  him. 

That  was  not  quite  a  year  ago,  and  it  is  only  intro- 
duced in  order  that  the  story  might  be  told  from  the 
very  beginning. 

A  thousand  trifling  things  happen  in  life  which  often 
turn  the  tide  or  change  the  course  of  events.  A  man, 
because  his  watch  is  a  few  minutes  late,  misses  a  train 
which  is  wrecked  and  thus  saves  his  life;  again  he 
goes  down  one  street  instead  of  another,  for  no  reason 
that  he  knows  of,  and  avoids  a  catastrophe  or  misses 
an  opportunity;  he  goes  here  instead  of  there  and 
something  occurs  which  changes  the  course  of  his  path 
from  that  point  on  to  the  grave.    Call  it  fate  if  you  like, 


A     TWISTED    LOVE    AFFAIR  167 

but  whatever  it  is  it  is  inevitable  and  inexorable,  and 
no  human  will  has  been  found  that  is  strong  enough 
to  resist  it.  It  is  like  the  call  of  "Hands  up"  coming 
from  the  desperado  with  a  revolver.  There  is  no  alter- 
native. In  some  cases  it  is  impulse,  a  seventh  sense,  or 
pure  luck — good  or  bad — according  to  results,  or  even 
intuition.  The  wise  man  says  that  what  is  to  be  will  be 
and  trails  along  in  contentment.  Others  fight  it  out 
and  come  forth  beaten  in  the  end. 

The  two  of  this  story  came  back  to  New  York  hope- 
lessly in  love  with  each  other,  and  at  that  time,  so  far 
as  I  know,  it  wasn't  the  commercial  love  of  the  twen- 
tieth century,  ready  to  switch  and  change  as  soon  as 
the  sun  went  under  the  first  cloud.  They  met  two, 
three  and  four  times  a  week,  first  in  one  place  and 
then  in  another,  and  they  knocked  about  town  like  a 
pair  of  happy-go-lucky  Bohemians  with  the  rent  paid 
a  year  in  advance. 

"Some  day,"  he  said  to  her  once,  "when  I  am  quite 
free  to  do  as  I  like  I'm  going  to  marry  you,  and  then 
all  of  this  running  to  cover  like  a  pair  of  rabbits  chased 
by  a  brown  ferret  that  you  can't  see  will  stop." 

"How  do  you  know  that  I  would  marry  you  even  if 
you  wanted  it?"  she  asked. 

"We'll  argue  that  point  when  the  time  comes,"  was 
the  answer. 

"Now  that  we've  known  each  other  for  so  long  a 
time — at  least  it  seems  long  to  me — I've  a  confession 
to  make  to  you.  I  ought  to  have  told  you  before,  but 
it  isn't  too  late  now." 

"Save  your  confession  as  I'm  saving  mine,"  he  said. 
"I  never  knew  these  past  life  stories  to  do  any  good, 
for  both  men  and  women  make  mistakes,  and  thev 


168  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

ought  to  do  with  them  as  the  doctors  do  with  their 
failures — bury   them." 

"But  we  are  doing  wrong  now." 

"The  boy  up  the  farmer's  tree  filling  his  pocket  with 
apples  is  happy  until  he  is  caught.  My  motto  is  to  get 
as  many  apples  as  you  can  until  you  hear  the  farmer 
coming  and  then  beat  it  while  you  have  the  wind  with 
you.  It  doesn't  require  as  much  nerve  as  you  think, 
and  any  time  the  game  isn't  worth  it  quit.  The  beaten 
man  in  a  fight,  if  he  is  game,  always  gets  as  much  ap- 
plause as  the  victor  and  sometimes  a  great  deal  more. 
I  have  seen  the  time  when  it  was  better  to  lose  than  to 
win,  strange  as  that  may  seem.  I  don't  believe  in 
figuring  on  what  is  to  be  years  from  now  because  I 
may  be  dead.  There  is  no  to-morrow  in  life — it  is  all 
to-day.  If  battles  have  been  won,  cities  destroyed, 
empires  established  and  colossal  fortunes  swept  away 
in  an  hour  what  chance  has  a  man — a  mere  atom  on 
the.  earth — to  speculate  in  futures?  The  typhoid  germ 
upon  an  oyster,  the  invisible  microbe  of  consumption 
eaten  or  breathed  in  with  a  thousand  other  death- 
dealing  mites,  can  kill  him  as  surely  as  a  thunderbolt 
or  a  drop  of  cyanide  of  potassium.  Upon  your  hands 
and  your  face  at  this  moment  are  the  bacteria  of  lock- 
jaw only  waiting  for  a  scratch  or  a  wound  of  some 
kind  to  enter  your  veins.  Yet  you  do  not  worry  about 
that.  You  see  you  have  me  talking  about  things  I  do 
not  like  and  it  will  take  at  least  another  pint  to  get 
the  taste  out  of  my  mouth.  Accept  my  advice,  if  the 
sun  is  shining  for  you  now  don't  fear  the  coining 
night." 

Through  all  the  winter  he  never  knew  where  she 
lived  or  how  she  lived  and  he  didn't  care,  and  that  was 


A     TWISTED    LOVE    AFFAIR  169 

because  he  was  a  philosopher,  and  she  knew  as  little 
about  him  as  he  did  about  her.  A  future  meeting  was 
always  arranged  upon  the  heels  of  the  previous  one. 
Her  name  was  Bess  and  his  was  Ben  and  that  was 
sufficient. 

Very  queer,  of  course,  and  almost  unbelievable,  but 
true  nevertheless. 

And  all  the  while  the  match  was  getting  nearer  to 
the  guncotton  and  neither  knew  it.  Playing  with  fire 
had  come  to  be  such  a  habit  with  these  two  that  they 
didn't  fear  the  flames. 

It  was  at  a  nice  little  afternoon  luncheon  that  she  be- 
came first  serious  and  then  confidential.  They  had 
reached  the  coffee  stage — the  proper  time  to  put  your 
elbows  on  the  table  and  talk — when  she  said : 

"Ben,  I  want  $5,000." 

At  that  particular  moment  he  was  lighting  a  cigar- 
ette and  he  didn't  look  up  for  a  full  minute,  which  is  a 
very  long  while  if  you  only  know  the  real  value  of 
time. 

"What  for?"  he  asked,  finally. 

"I  am  married,  you  know.  I  mean  you  don't  know 
it,  but  I'm  telling  you  now,  and  I  want  to  get  a  divorce. 
I  have  been  collecting  evidence  and  I  have  all  I  want, 
but  I  shall  have  to  get  a  lawyer,  and  I  shall  also  have 
to  live  until  the  case  is  disposed  of." 

"Why  didn't  you  consult  me?" 

"Why  should  I  until  I  was  ready?" 

"I'm  a  lawyer." 

"Would  you  take  the  case  ?" 

"No,  but  I  could  advise  you." 

So  he  did,  and  being  a  very  smart  lawyer  instead  of 
giving  her  a  check  for  the  money  she  wanted  he  gave 


170 


SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 


her  what  in  his  opinion  was  $5,000  worth  of  advice. 
You  see,  the  substance  of  his  love  of  the  fall  had  fallen 
away  to  a  shadow,  and  hard-headed  business  men 
don't  invest  in  shadows  or  even  pay  money  to  build  a 
monument  over  a  sentiment  that  is  either  dead  or 
dying.  Hearts  are  rarely  trumps ;  spades  have  the  call 
to-day. 

"I'm  going  ahead  anyhow,"  she  went  on,  "and  I  sup- 
pose when  I  am  free  that  even  your  memory  will  suf- 
fer from  an  attack  of  dry  rot,  and  that  you'll  forget 
everything  you  have  ever  said  to  me — or  deny  it,  Which 
amounts  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end." 

So  the  next  day  she  told  her  story  to  a  lawyer,  not 
the  story  of  Ben  and  the  dinners,  but  the  tales  of  the 
man  to  whom  she  was  married,  and  when  she  pro- 
duced certain  dates  and  facts  she  was  told  she  had  the 
clearest  kind  of  a  clear  case  and  that  it  would  go 
through  with  bells  on,  with  hubby  paying  the  shot. 

The  complaint  was  drawn  up  and  the  papers  served ; 
and  here  comes  the  great  part  of  this  recital. 

Just  one  week  later  a  clean-cut,  well-built  young 
business  man,  of  about  35,  walked  into  Ben's  office  and 
asked  for  a  consultation. 

"You  have  been  recommended  to  me,"  he  began,  "by 
a  business  friend  of  mine.  I  have  been  sued  for  di- 
vorce by  my  wife.  My  morals  are  none  too  good,  but 
neither  are  hers.  Will  you  take  the  case  and  defend 
me?" 

"Yes,"  said  Ben,  "I'll  take  it,"  and  he  called  a  sten- 
ographer. "Dictate  your  story  to  her  and  then  see  me 
to-morrow,  when  I  will  have  the  papers  drawn  up.  If 
vour  counter  charges  amount  to  anything  at  all  we  can 
beat  her — that  is,  if  you  want  to  beat  her.    As  I  under- 


A     TWISTED    LOVE    AFFAIR  171 

stand  it  you  don't  want  her  to  get  a  divorce  from  you  ?" 

'That's  it  exactly.  It  isn't  that  I  care  a  rap,  but  I 
don't  care  to  be  made  a  scapegoat,  and  I  think  when 
she  knows  what  kind  of  an  answer  I  have  she'll  drop 
the  whole  case  and  take  to  the  woods,  which  will  suit 
me  down  to  the  ground." 

At  11  o'clock  Ben  saw  the  transcribed  notes  of  the 
amanuensis  and  he  hadn't  read  more  than  ten  lines 
when  he  jumped  from  his  chair  as  though  it  had  sud- 
denly become  red-hot. 

"Miss  Bates,"  he  called  sharply,  "bring  me  your  note 
book." 

In  she  came  and  handed  it  to  him. 

"You'll  say  nothing  about  this  ?" 

"Xo,  sir,"  but  there  was  the  suggestion  of  a  smile 
around  the  corners  of  her  mouth. 

He  thrust  it  in  his  pocket  and  in  a  minute  was  out  of 
the  door. 

There  was  a  little  luncheon  date  on  with  Bess  for  12 
o'clock,  but  he  couldn't  wait.  He  was  at  the  appointed 
place  a  full  hour  before  the  time,  and  he  sat  at  the 
table  glaring  at  the  door.  Exactly  on  the  stroke  of 
the  hour  she  came  in  smiling. 

"Why,  Ben,  what's  the  matter  ?  You  look  as  though 
you  had  been  struck  by  a  blizzard." 

"I  have.  Read  that,"  and  he  handed  two  typewritten 
sheets  to  her.  "You'll  have  to  drop  that  case  of  yours, 
and  drop  it  quick,  too.  Your  husband  had  the  nerve 
to  retain  me  to  defend  him ;  and  in  his  counter  charges 
he  names  me  as  your  co-respondent,  and  I'm  damned 
if  he  hasn't  got  every  move  we  ever  made  pat  and  to 
the  minute.     He's  been  on  to  everything." 


172  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

He  looked  up  suddenly  and  a  look  of  suspicion  came 
over  his  face. 

"What  is  this,  a  job?  Have  you  two  been  working 
me?" 

"You  contemptible  thing,"  she  whispered,  "you  have 
the  mind  of  a  street  sweeper.  How  dare  you  talk 
to  me  like  that  after  all  our " 

Two  tears  came  into  her  eyes. 

"If  I  were  a  man  I  would  fight  you  and  you  wouldn't 
dare  to  fight  back.  You'd  run.  Do  you  hear  that — 
you'd  run  away,  because  you  are  a  coward.  I  could 
make  you  run  away  now  if  I  wanted,  because  you 
are  afraid." 

Then  she  turned  and  walked  out  of  the  place  without 
even  so  much  as  looking  behind  her,  and  the  man  was 
left  with  a  lot  of  typewritten  sheets  clutched  in  one 
hand  and  a  stenographer's  note  book  in  the  other. 

There  was  never  any  suit,  but  if  you  happen  to  New 
York  any  day  during  the  winter  months  I'll  show  you 
this  couple — Bess  who  made  a  little  mistake  and 
stepped  out  to  where  the  daisies  grow  once  or  twice — 
and  her  husband,  who  won  because  he  was  willing  to 
wait. 

It  sounds  like  a  romance,  I  know,  but  it's  all  true, 
every  word  of  it,  for  the  little  stenographer  told  me 
the  most  of  it. 


WEDDING  RINGS  AND  FOOTLIGHTS 

There  are  several  titles  which  would  cover  this  story 
with  equal  aptness,  and  one  of  them  is  The  Siren 
Song  of  the  Burlesque  Lady.  Another  one  that  would 
sound  well  is  the  Corralling  of  the  Willie  Boy.  In 
fact  they  would  do  well  together — a  great  deal  better 
than  the  lady  and  the  boy  did.  I  call  him  boy  in  this 
story,  but  he  is  really  a  man  so  far  as  years  and  stature 
go,  that  is  all,  and  he  is  learning  a  lot  every  day,  so 
much  so  that  if  he  keeps  on  he  will  some  day  be  a 
man  in  everything. 

The  burlesque  show  with  which  this  perfect  lady 
was  a  spear  carrier,  as  well  as  a  few  other  things,  hit 
the  Bowery  early  in  the  season,  and  opened  up  with 
a  roar  that  could  be  heard  many  blocks.  It  was  the 
same  old  thing  only  a  little  more  so,  and  the  line-up 
was  composed  of  a  bunch  of  husky  dames  who  ought 
to  have  been  carrying  the  hod  instead  of  giving  an 
exhibition  of  beef  on  the  hoof.  The  roster  is  a  very 
familiar  one,  with  the  beef-eaters  sometimes  in  the 
background  like  scenery,  and  then  again  in  the  fore- 
ground to  give  the  boys  a  good  look  at  the  tights, 
two  or  three  ginger  girls,  who  had  a  small  amount 
of  talent  with  a, great  amount  of  nerve,  who  did 
stunts  in  the  olio,  and  the  usual  collection  of  Irish 
and  Hebrew  comedians,  of  which  the  least  said  the 
better.  The  names  on  the  roster  would  look  like  a 
collection  of  heroines  from  the  Waverly  novels,  with 


They  had  a  hot  time  in  Minneapolis  when  the  show  hit  town 


WEDDING    RINGS    AND    FOOTLIGHTS       175 

Pearl,  Pansy  and  Myrtle  in  the  lead  by  a  couple  of 
good  lengths.  It  was  put  together  according  to  the  re- 
cipe of  a  well-known  manager,  which  was  this  : 

"The  people  who  pay  their  money  for  these  kind  of 
shows,  my  boy,  don't  want  beauty,  or  brains  or  talent. 
They'd  go  to  sleep  with  Sarah  Bernhardt  doing  the 
death  scene  in  'Camille,'  and  they'd  call  Booth  in 
'Richard  the  Third'  a  frost.  What  they  want  is  legs 
— good,  big  husky  legs  that  can  take  all  the  wrinkles 
out  of  the  biggest  size  of  pink  tights  on  the  market. 
They  want  quantity,  not  quality.  Give  them  that  and 
you'll  get  their  ten,  twenty  and  thirty  every  time." 

He  wore  big  diamonds,  had  a  bank  roll  the  size  of  a 
Hamburger  steak,  and  so  he  must  have  been  in  right. 
Besides  he  always  had  a  bottle  of  wine  with  his  meals, 
and  he  didn't  care  what  kind  of  wine  it  was,  so  long 
as  the  label  was  attractive;  which  goes  to  show  that 
his  money  was  coming  in  so  fast  that  his  palate 
couldn't  keep   up  with  it. 

On  the  night  the  Fair  Maids  of  Gotham  opened,  the 
Willie  Boy,  very  fly  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  with  a 
soft  sucker  part  about  as  big  as  a  Derby  hat,  planted 
himself  in  one  of  the  front  seats.  He  had  been  mix- 
ing up  with  sports  all  of  his  life,  and  as  a  result  the 
corners  on  him  were  as  hard  as  flint.  His  roll  was 
divided  in  four  parts" and  stowed  away  in  four  sepa- 
rate places  for  safety's  sake,  and  when  it  came  to  a 
hurry  touch  he  was  prepared  to  dig  down  into  his 
change  pocket  and  produce  a  few  pennies  with  verdi- 
gris on  them  as  the  extent  of  his  capital.  He  had  a 
block  and  a  counter  for  every  proposition  that  came 
his  way  and  when  anything  came  off  he  always  man- 


176  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

aged  to   land  his   percentage  and   ride,   even   though 
everybody  else   walked. 

The  orchestra  had  crushed  through  its  preliminary 
canter,  the  lights  went  down,  the  buzz  of  talk  let  up 
for  a  moment,  and  as  he  settled  himself  back  in  his  seat 
with  a  big  cigar  in  his  mouth  the  curtain  slid  up  for 
the  opening  chorus.  The  grenadiers  in  front  swung 
their  legs  coquettishly,  and  pranced  about  like  two- 
legged  pachyderms  as  they  delivered  the  goods  in  the 
shape  of  a  song,  which  stated  in  very  wobbly  and  un- 
certain rhyme  that  they  were  very  jolly,  very  enter- 
taining, and  that  they  were  out  for  a  lark  and  were 
willing  to  take  chances.  It  was  all  very  affecting, 
and  it  might  have  been  going  on  yet  if  the  star  of  the 
show,  known  professionally  as  the  principal  boy,  hadn't 
butted  in  like  a  football  player  when  the  cue,  "Here 
comes  the  Prince,"  was  given  by  a  perfect  lady  with 
a  forty-six-inch  bust.  She  was  so  thoroughly  uphol- 
stered with  rhinestones  that  she  looked  like  some  new 
kind  of  an  electric  light  proposition  on  legs.  Willie 
sized  her  up  with  the  eye  of  a  connoisseur,  and  he 
fell  to  wondering  whether  or  not  among  all  that  pav- 
ing of  cut  glass  there  might  not  be  a  true  gem. 

Suddenly,  as  the  line  in  front  swayed,  then  broke 
and  shifted,  he  caught  sight  of  a  tall  blonde  who  had 
been  fastened  to  it  like  the  tail  on  a  kite.  She  wasn't 
quite  as  wide  as  the  rest  of  the  bunch,  but  there  was 
something  about  her  that  attracted  his  immediate  at- 
tention. 

And  here  you  see  again  the  delicate  tracery  of  the 
Italian  hand  of  fate — that  invisible,  indefinite  thing 
which  stands  always  at  our  backs  ready  to  move  us 
here  and  there,  like  chessmen  on  a  board,  whether  we 


WEDDING    RINGS    AND    FOOTLIGHTS       177 

like  it  or  not.  The  male  human  pats  himself  on  his 
shoulder  and  congratulates  himself  that  he  has  a  will 
and  a  mind  of  his  own,  but  ever  near  him  is  that 
wraith  which  directs  his  movements,  making  him  do 
this  or  that  and  go  here  and  there.  There  is  no  force, 
no  threat  and  no  cajoling ;  it  is  simpler  than  a  twist 
of  the  wrist,  and  the  end  of  that  winding,  twisting, 
intersected  road,  with  its  hundreds  of  sharp  turns 
here  and  there  and  its  joys  and  sorrows,  is  the  grave. 

So  look  at  the  boy  with  good  red  blood  in  his  veins, 
with  a  gentle,  high-bred  mother,  a  beautiful  sister,  and 
a  home  in  which  there  was  nothing  but  refining  influ- 
ences, sitting  bolt  upright  now  in  that  cheap  theatre 
seat  and  gazing  like  one  bewitched  at  this  girl  with  the 
yellow  hair,  bleached  to  almost  a  frazzle,  and  the  pale, 
watery  blue  eyes,  with  no  figure  at  all  and  absolutely 
no  talent,  produced  and  spit  forth  from  a  tenement  to 
grow  up  in  the  city's  streets  like  a  weed  to  finally 
reach  the  most  ordinary  position  in  a  most  ordinary 
theatrical  company,  where,  standing  on  the  lowest 
possible  level,  she  was  satisfied.  Paint,  powder  and 
rouge  made  her  a  ghastly  sight,  but  in  his  eyes  she  was 
framed  in  an  aureole  and  was  as  beautiful  as  a  Ma- 
donna. 

It  was  one  of  the  things  that  no  human  being  will 
ever  be  able  to  account  for  satisfactorily.  Personal 
magnetism  undoubtedly  plays  a  part  in  it,  as  it  does  in 
many  other  things,  but  you  wouldn't  think  a  young 
fellow  like  this  would  go  so  far  out  of  his  class  unless 
he  had  a  throwback  strain  of  degeneracy  imbedded 
somewhere  in  his  system. 

The  tribe  trooped  off"  to  make  a  change  of  costume 
and  the  comedians  settled  down  to  work.     Then  the 


178  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

ginger  girls  whooped  things  up  a  bit,  and  an  acro- 
bat went  through  the  routine  of  stunts,  while  a  few 
spasmodic  outbursts  of  applause  showed  there  were 
some  people  in  the  house  who  appreciated  his  work. 
But  the  pair  of  eyes  owned  by  the  young  fellow  in  the 
aisle  seat,  third  row,  were  looking  for  that  blonde  and 
nothing  else. 

Knowing  everybody  as  he  did,  it  wasn't  a  difficult 
matter  for  him  to  get  someone  who  knew  her  to  wait 
after  the  show  and  bring  them  together  in  a  rather 
formal  way,  although,  in  her  case,  that  wouldn't  have 
been  at  all  necessary.  She  had  as  little  use  for  for- 
malities as  she  had  for  conventionalities,  which  is  not 
at  all  to  be  wondered  at. 

"Meet  my  friend  Willie;  now  let's  all  go  out  and 
get  a  drink,"  was  all  there  was  to  it,  and  ten  minutes 
later  four — two  of  each  sex — were  planted  around  a 
table  in  a  cafe  not  more  than  a  block  or  so  from  the 
theatre. 

"Like  the  show?"  asked  the  Genial  Giantess,  who 
was  keen  enough  to  smell  a  little  love  affair  in  the 
air. 

"Great,"  answered  Willie;  "it  ought  to  get  the 
money  this  season.     What  are  you  going  to  drink?" 

"I  never  take  anything  but  beer  after  the  matinee — 
it  hurts  my  voice." 

Strangely  enough  no  one  laughed,  but  with  another 
girl  and  at  another  time  Willie  would  have  laughed 
himself  almost  into  convulsions,  for  he  has  a  keen 
sense  of  humor. 

The  four  ate  and  drank  at  that  table  until  it  was 
time  for  the  night  show  and  then  they  separated,  by 
which  time  Willie  was  so  far  gone  that  he  sat  through- 


WEDDING    RINGS    AND    FOOTLIGHTS       179 

out  the  evening  performance  while  she  smiled  encour- 
agingly at  him  from  the  other  side  of  the  footlights. 

That  is  how  the  courtship  really  began. 

For  the  rest  of  the  week  they  were  together  all  the 
time,  and  she  began  to  realize  that  she  had  at  last 
reached  the  apex  of  her  ambition  and  found  a  man 
who  looked  like  a  wedding  ring  and  a  board  bill  prop- 
osition. 

A  fellow  like  this  can  have  a  dozen  affairs  and  no 
one  will  question  them,  but  when  it  comes  to  marry- 
ing there  is  a  different  story.  To  the  outsiders  it 
bore  all  the  earmarks  of  a  week's  stand  at  first,  and 
as  he  "never  showed  his  hand  no  one  was  any  the 
wiser,  not  even  his  most  intimate  friends. 

A  man's  declaration  of  love  for  a  woman  is  a  very 
beautiful  thing  so  long  as  he  is  honest  about  it  and 
keeps  within  his  own  class.  The  slang  of  the  slums 
can  be  made  as  sincere  as  the  most  polished  English. 
But  in  a  case  of  infatuation  like  this — it  might  be 
called  temporary  insanity — it  doesn't  hardly  seem 
right  there  should  be  any  ceremony.  The  halo  of 
romance  existed  only  in  the  mind  of  the  boy — for  the 
woman  it  was  a  business  transaction  with  the  obliga- 
tions all  on  one  side,  so  it  was  with  a  flippant  air  that 
she  promised  to  "love,  honor  and  obey,"  and  then 
after  the  briefest  of  brief  honeymoons  she  went  on 
the  road  with  the  show,  while  the  young  husband  at 
once  set  about  preparing  a  home  for  her  when  she 
should  get  ready  to  settle  down  to  a  life  of  domesticity. 

At  first  he  figured  on  taking  her  to  his  mother's 
home,  but  when  he  told  of  the  hurry-up  wedding  and 
showed  a  picture  of  the  woman  to  whom  he  had  given 
his  name,  the  scene  that  followed  forever  settled  the 


180  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

question,  and  he  knew  that  his  soubrette  wife  and  his 
mother  would  never  live  under  the  same  roof  to- 
gether. 

The  morals  of  the  members  of  a  burlesque  show  on 
the  road  have  come  to  be  a  joke.  Of  course,  there  are 
exceptions,  but  they  are  very  rare,  though  I  person- 
ally know  of  some  good  women  who  have  gone  on 
tour  through  force  of  circumstances  and  have  come 
through  the  ordeal  morally  and  physically  clean.  I 
regret  to  be  compelled  to  record  that  the  Genial  Giant- 
ess doesn't  belong  in  this  class,  and  when  the  aggre- 
gation had  torn  thirty  weeks  .off  the  calendar  they 
came  back  looking  like  refugees  from  the  San  Fran- 
cisco earthquake. 

"I  ain't  got  a  cent,"  remarked  the  blonde  on  the 
ferryboat  coming  from  Jersey  City,  "and  I  don't  have 
to  have  because  Willie  will  stake  me  as  soon  as  I  get 
to  New  York,  and  besides  he's  got  a  flat  fixed  up  for 
me." 

That  was  the  truth.  He  had  a  nice  apartment  for 
the  homecoming,  and  while  he  wasn't  as  much  in  love 
with  her  as  he  was  when  they  were  first  married,  he 
still  felt  that  he  had  obligations  and  he  ought  to  make 
good. 

You  know  what  I  said  in  the  beginning  about  fate  ? 
Well,  listen. 

While  the  performers  were  on  the  ferryboat,  and 
when  Blondie  was  making  her  celebrated  remark,  her 
Willie  was  up  against  a  bar  on  Broadway  with  a 
couple  of  men  he  had  met  some  time  before.  Thev 
were  talking  about  women,  and  one,  a  commercial 
traveler,  remarked: 


WEDDING    RINGS    AND    FOOTLIGHTS       181 

"I'll  put  you  up  against  a  warm  bunch  if  you  want 
to  get  on  the  job  this  week.  We  didn't  do  a  thing  to 
them  in  Minneapolis  when  I  was  there  on  my  last  trip. 
I  had  a  big  blonde  on  my  staff,  and  the  first  night  I 
met  her  I  loaded  her  up  so  that  she  had  to  be  carried 
upstairs  to  her  room  by  three  waiters.  Here's  a  letter 
I  got  from  her  last  week,  and  while  she's  no  ten  thou- 
sand dollar  beauty  yet  she's  a  good  fellow  and  a  thor- 
oughbred sport.  Read  it,  Willie.  When  she  hits  this 
burg  I'll  put  you  next  and  bet  20  to  1  that  she'll 
drink  you  to  a  standstill,  for  she's  the  biggest  tank  I 
ever   ran  across." 

And  when  Willie  read  the  letter  which  bore  his 
wife's  signature  and  which  put  him  wise  to  a  few 
things  he  had  never  before  dreamed  of,  he  did  what 
many  another  man  would  do  under  the  same  circum- 
stances— that  is,  many  another  wise  man.  He  ordered 
a  round  of  drinks,  and  then  he  kept  on  ordering  and 
saying  nothing,  letting  the  other  fellows  tell  all  they 
knew,  and  the  first  chance  he  got  he  blew  out  and 
went  home,  not  to  the  place  he  had  fixed  up  for  Mrs. 
Willie,  but  to  the  home  presided  over  by  his  mother. 
He  simply  abandoned  the  flat  and  all  of  his  day 
dreams.  They  vanished  like  mist  in  the  morning's 
sun. 

A  few  days  later  he  got  a  letter  from  his  wife  and 
in  it  she  reproached  him  for  not  meeting  her,  and 
furthermore  she  inquired  what  had  become  of  the  flat 
he  had  fixed  up  for  her. 

"I  am  broke,  you  know,"  she  wrote,  "and  I  think 
the  least  you  could  do  is  to  help  me  out." 

She  signed  it  "Your  loving  (sic)  and  affectionate 
wife,"  and  it  almost  gagged  him  to  read  it. 


l82 


SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 


He  took  a  sheet  of  paper  and  wrote  the  answer.  It 
contained  but  one  line,  but  it  told  a  whole  chapter.  In 
due  course  of  time  it  was  delivered  to  her.  She 
opened  the  envelope  and  read  the  enclosure.  What 
she  said  was  unfit  for  publication,  for  what  she  saw 
was  only  two  words  and  they  were : 

"Forget  it."  • 


TOLD  BY  THE  MANICURE  GIRL 

"How  long  have  you  been  here?"  asked  the  man 
with  the  black  mustache ;  "I  never  noticed  you  before." 

"Just  a  week  to-day,"  said  the  manicure,  as  she 
soused  one  of  his  fat,  pudgy  paws  in  the  scented  water. 
She  didn't  even  take  the  trouble  to  look  up  at  him  as 
she  talked,  but  applied  herself  at  once  to  the  almost 
impossible  task  of  making  his  nails  even  presentable. 
It's  a  hard  job,  you  know,  trying  to  improve  on  one 
of  nature's  bum  pieces  of  work. 

The  man  leaned  back  in  his  chair  contentedly,  and 
with  that  air  of  assurance  which  money  begets,  and 
he  looked  her  over  as  he  would  have  looked  over  a 
new  style  of  shirt  in  a  haberdasher's  window.  He 
noted  that  her  hair  was  dark  chestnut  in  color  and 
luxuriant,  also  that  it  was  undoubtedly  all  her  own. 
The  contour  of  her  face  was  such  as  would  have  at- 
tracted any  man  with  red  blood  in  his  veins  and  a 
heart  to  pump  it.  She  had,  besides,  nice  hands  that 
were  well  kept,  and  a  dainty  manner  that  was  rather 
charming. 

"Don't  you  ever  get  tired  of  doing  this  kind  of 
work?"  he  asked,  when  he  had  finished  his  inspection 
and  had  sized  her  up  to  his  apparent  satisfaction. 

"I  am  always  tired  of  it,"  she  answered,  briefly. 

"How  would  you  like  to  travel  ?"  was  his  next  ques- 
tion. 


I  wasn't  arrested,  but  I  was  put  out  as  if  I  were  a  common  swindler" 


TOLD    BY    THE    MANICURE    GIRL  185 

Then  she  paused  a  moment  and  glanced  up.  She 
was  smiling,  and  the  two  dimples  that  came  in  her 
cheeks  rather  enhanced  her  beauty. 

Then  he  saw  that  she  also  had  teeth  that  were  white 
and  regular,  that  her  lips  were  red  and  her  eyelashes 
long. 

You  know  a  bargaining  man  takes  in  all  these  things, 
just  the  same  as  a  buyer  of  beef  on  the  hoof  feels  and 
prods  the  cattle  in  the  search  for  blemishes. 

"There  is  nothing  in  the  world  I  would  like  better 
than  to  travel." 

She  looked  him  squarely  in  the  eyes,  and  her  smile 
was  accentuated.  Then  she  resumed  her  work.  As 
for  him  he  leaned  still  farther  back  in  the  comfortable 
chair  and  sucked  complacently  on  his  big  Havana. 

"I  knew  you  was  a  nice  little  girl  as  soon  as  I  saw 
you." 

"Did  you?" 

The  rapid,  supple  fingers  never  paused  for  a  mo- 
ment in  their  work,  and  were  trimming,  rubbing  and 
polishing  those  awful  nails  into  some  kind  of  decent 
shape.  The  thick,  heavy,  hairy  hand,  with  its  spatu- 
late  extremities,  showed  physical  strength  and  nothing 
else.  It  was  made  for  work,  and  it  had  worked,  too, 
in  its  day.  It  had  been  used  to  the  most  ordinary  and 
menial  kind  of  labor,  as  the  hands  of  its  ancestors  had. 
It  had  lifted  beams  and  handled  picks  and  shovels.  It 
had  pulled  at  ropes  and  tugged  at  heavy  burdens.  It 
had  had  little  to  do  with  the  gentler  side  of  life,  and 
even  the  big  diamond  ring  on  the  fourth  finger  could 
not  hide  its  early  career. 

But  an  accident  happened — a  money-making  acci- 
dent   which    some   might    call    opportunity — and    the 


1 86  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

hands  had  been  withdrawn  from  their  labors,  and  the 
callous  spots  had  a  chance  to  disappear — gradually, 
but  none  the  less  surely.  The  movement  of  the  slim 
white  fingers  caused  him  to  look  down,  and  he  was 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  his  heart  was  beating  a  bit 
faster  than  usual.  The  blue  smoke  from  his  cigar 
curled  up  through  his  mustache,  it  crept  into  his  eyes 
and  made  them  sting.  Through  the  haze  he  noticed 
that  the  girl  had  a  bow  of  black  ribbon  fastened  to  her 
hair. 

"I'll  bet  you'd  be  a  good  sport  if  you  had  the 
chance." 

"That  depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  the  chance," 
she  said. 

He  couldn't  quite  analyze  that,  and  so  he  blurted 
out: 

"Go  down  the  line  with  me  and  I'll  show  you." 

She  paid  no  attention  to  that. 

"How  about  it?"  he  persisted. 

"How  about  what?" 

"I'd  just  like  to  take  you  out  to  a  little  lunch  for  two. 
What  time  do  you  break  away  from  here  ?  What  time 
do  you  knock  off?" 

"To-night,  do  you  mean?" 

"Sure,  yes,  to-night." 

"Just  time  enough  to  go  home,  and  I  never  go  out  at 
night." 

"Tush,  tush,  now.  Be  a  good  fellow,  and  if  I  like 
you  I'll  take  you  on  a  long  trip.  You  know  you  said 
you  liked  to  travel,  didn't  you?  Well,  I'm  going  to 
give  you  a  chance,  if  you  behave  yourself  and  stick 
to  me.  I've  been  looking  for  a  girl  like  you  for  a  long 
while,  and  you  just  hit  me  right,  so  you're  on  the  job. 


TOLD    BY    THE    MANICURE    GIRL  187. 

I  can  make  good,  all  right,  you  needn't  be  afraid  of 
that,  for  I've  got  all  kinds  of  money,  and  when  I  meet 
anybody  I  like  I  spend  it  like  a  drunken  sailor,  see?" 

"Yes,  I  see ;  I  knew  you  had  money  all  the  time." 

"You  did,  did  you ;  well,  how  ?" 

"Because  it  is  only  men  with  plenty  of  money  who 
would  talk  to  a  girl  the  way  you  have  been  talking  to 
me.  It  is  only  the  men  with  money  who  think  they 
can  buy  everything  in  sight,  especially  if  that  which 
they  think  they  fancy  happens  to  be  the  wearer  of 
a  skirt,  and  it's  the  men  with  money  who  think  their 
money  is  better  than  anybody  else's  money,  and  their 
dollars  are  of  more  value  than  the  dollars  owned  or 
controlled  by  some  one  who  has  less  than  they  have. 
Are  you  married?" 

"No,"  he  answered.  He  would  have  said  more  if  he 
had  known  what  to  say. 

"Then  why  don't  you  go  and  pick  out  some  woman 
whom  you  .like  and  who  likes  you,  and  marry  her  and 
have  it  over  with.  Your  time  for  being  a  gay  sport 
has  passed;  leave  that  to  the  young  fellows." 

Daintily  she  reddened  his  nails  with  rouge,  doing 
them  as  carefully  as  if  they  were  works  of  art,  and  tap- 
ping each  one  gently  in  order  to  get  just  the  right 
amount  of  color. 

"I  don't  think,"  she  went  on,  "that  you  quite  know 
what  you've  been  up  against.  You  may  have  heard 
the  old  saying,  'a  burnt  child  dreads  the  fire ;'  well,  I'm 
the  child  in  this  case,  although  I'm  no  child  in  years. 
As  I  told  you  before,  I've  been  here  a  week,  and  it's  a 
great  relief  to  me  to  be  working,  for  I've  been  on  one 
of  those  little  trips  you  were  just  talking  about,  and 


188  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

there  is  nothing  to  it.  You  see,"  then  she  glanced  up 
quickly,  "perhaps  you  don't  want  to  hear  this." 

"That's  all  right ;  go  ahead,  you  can't  hurt  my  feel- 
ings." 

"I  was  told  that  I  was  a  good  fellow  and  a  nice  girl, 
and  I  was  led  to  believe  that  I  could  have  anything  in 
the  world  that  I  wanted,  and  I  want  to  tell  you  right 
here  that  it  is  a  beautiful  thing  to  believe  and  have 
faith  in  anyone.  Some  of  the  stories  that  men  tell  to 
women  would  make  great  reading  if  it  was  only 
written  right,  but  they  would  be  all  fiction,  because  I 
don't  believe  a  man  ever  told  a  woman  the  truth  in  his 
life.  I'm  talking  from  personal  experience,  of  course. 
This  one  man,  who  was  really  old  enough  to  be  my 
father,  talked  to  me  about  my  future,  and  said,  among 
other  things,  he  would  always  look  after  me,  and  I  was 
serious  enough  about  it  to  believe  that  he  would,  too. 
Then  one  day  he  asked  me  if  I  wanted  to  take  a  little 
trip,  and  his  words  were  so  much  like  yours  when  you 
spoke  that  you  startled  me.  Isn't  it  strange  that  the 
nails  of  your  left  hand  take  on  so  much  higher  polish 
than  those  of  the  right  hand?  I  wonder  why  it  is? 
There,  I'm  through  now.     Fifty  cents,  please." 

"But  how  about  the  finish  of  that  story?  Did  you 
take  the  trip  ?" 

"Of  course  I  took  it." 

"Make  the  job  a  dollar  and  tell  me  the  rest." 

"I  never  would  have  believed  that  I  would  be  sitting 
here  telling  that  story  to  a  man  whom  I  had  only  met 
once.  You're  not  offended  at  the  way  I  criticised  you, 
are  you?" 

"Not  at  all,"  he  answered,  "go  ahead  and  criticise 


TOLD    BY    THE    MANICURE    GIRL  189 

me  all  you  like.  I  rather  like  it,  it's  so  seldom  that  I 
am  criticised." 

"You  mean  nowadays?"  she  asked,  noting  his  hands. 

"Yes,  since  I  got  money.     Go  on  with  the  story." 

"The  trip  was  to  be  to  Europe — first  London,  then 
Paris,  and  after  that  Berlin.  He  was  a  banker  and  so 
prominent  that  you  would  know  his  name  at  once  if  I 
were  to  mention  it,  but  there  is  where  I  draw  the  line. 
I'll  save  him  that  much,  anyhow.  When  we  left  he 
had  a  large  bag  in  which  he  seemed  to  take  an  especial 
interest,  for  he  would  allow  no  one  to  touch  it  but  him- 
self, and  it  wasn't  until  we  were  half  way  across  that  I 
found  out  that  it  was  all  full  of  money." 

"Money  ?"  queried  the  man  with  the  black  mustache, 
sitting  bolt  upright  in  his  chair. 

"Yes,  money.  That's  what  I  said,  wasn't  it?"  she 
asked,  petulantly.  "Brand  new  greenbacks,  pound 
notes,  hundred  and  thousand-franc  notes.  Oh,  they 
were  beautiful  to  look  at,  and  I  counted  over  the  pack- 
ages because  they  were  so  pretty.  You  see,  he  said  he 
was  going  over  to  put  through  a  big  banking  deal,  and 
he  cautioned  me  to  say  nothing  about  all  the  money  he 
had  with  him,  for  fear  he  would  be  robbed.  When  we 
arrived  in  London  we  went  direct  to  the  Cecil,  where 
he  registered  under  an  assumed  name,  but  I  was  down 
on  the  book  as  his  wife,  just  the  same,  and  he  told  me 
to  go  out  and  set  some  clothes  and  anything  l  wanted. 
He  said  he  wanted  to  have  some  of  the  big  bills 
changed  and  that  was  the  easiest  way  in  the  world  to 
have  it  done,  but  he  asked  me  to  bring  all  the  change 
to  him,  and  to  pay  for  every  separate  article  with  one 
of  the  new  bills.  I  thought  it  was  rather  queer  at  the 
time,  but  I  did  as  he  told  me  and  I  never  in  my  life  had 


I  go  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

such  a  good  time  buying  things.  I  brought  back  to  the 
hotel  a  dreadful  amount  of  change,  so  much  that  it 
was  a  nuisance. 

"Every  day  it  was  the  same  thing  over  .again  until  I 
honestly  grew  tired  of  spending  money.  Think  of 
that — tired  spending.  Before  we  left  for  Paris  he  put 
over  $15,000  of  the  change  in  a  safe  deposit  vault  that 
only  he  and  I  knew  about,  because  something  had  hap- 
pened and  he  had  to  get  to  Paris  quickly.  When  we 
got  there  we  went  to  the  Grand  Hotel,  where  he  regis- 
tered under  still  another  name.  Again  I  went  shop- 
ping, and  the  only  hard  part  of  it  was  that  I  had  a  new 
bill  to  change  every  time  I  bought  anything,  think  of 
that,  even  if  it  was  a  little  lunch  in  a  cafe,  and  many 
a  time  I  have  had  to  wait  while  they  sent  out  for  the 
change  of  a  thousand-franc  note.  We  were  there  just 
four  days  when  one  afternoon  two  men  came  to  our 
rooms  with  the  proprietor  or  manager  of  the  hotel,  and 
the  first  thing  I  knew  he  was  arrested  on  the  charge  of 
making  or  having  counterfeit  money  or  something  like 
that.  Before  they  got  him  out  of  the  room  he  whis- 
pered to  me  that  he  had  put  $15,000  more  in  a  safe 
deposit  vault  in  Paris,  and  he  told  me  the  name  of 
the  place.     He  said  it  was  in  my  name,  too. 

"I  wasn't  arrested,  but  I  was  put  out  of  the  hotel  as 
if  I  had  been  a  swindler.  I  had  enough  money  to  get 
home,  and  so  I  came.  I  don't  want  any  more  excite- 
ment in  mine,  and  I'm  content  to  get  along  the  best 
way  I  can,  without  any  fireworks  or  trips  of  any  kind, 
unless,  of  course,  I'm  sure  that  everything  is  absolute- 
ly correct  and  all  right.  Suppose  I  had  been  broke, 
what  would  I  have  done  alone  in  Paris?" 


TOLD    BY    THE    MANICURE    GIRL  191 

"What  happened  to  the  man?"  he  asked,  ignoring 
her  question. 

"He  was  tried  and  sentenced  to  twenty  years*  im- 
prisonment, and  if  he  had  only  married  me,  and  I  had 
my  marriage  certificate,  I  could  go  over  there  and  get 
$30,000  as  easy  as  nothing.  I  don't  care  so  very  much 
for  it,  but  still  it  would  come  in  very  handy  and  I 
wouldn't  mind  dividing  it  up  with  anyone  who  could 
help  me  out." 

The  man  fidgeted  in  his  chair,  glanced  out  of  the 
window,  and  then  took  a  long  pull  at  his  cigar. 

"Bored  you,  didn't  it?"  asked  the  girl.  "I  knew  it 
would,  but  you  insisted  on  my  telling  it,  and  you're  the 
only  one  that  knows  it.    I'm  really  getting  garrulous.'' 

"Do  you  think  $5,000  would  be  enough  to  get  the 
papers  fixed  up?" 

"Oh,  yes,  that  would  be  quite  enough,  for  I  inquired 
about  it.  It  would  take  me  there  and  back  again  and 
pay  all  expenses." 

"And  you'd  give  me  half?" 

"Why,  of  course  I  would.     Who  wouldn't?" 

You  know  the  old  saying  about  a  sucker  being  born 
every  minute.  I  could  go  on  and  make  the  usual  hot 
finish  to  this  story,  but  what's  the  use  when  two  lines 
will  suffice.  She  got  the  money,  of  course,  and  he  got 
what  is  known  in  the  language  of  The  Line  as  the 
lemon.  Very  sour  it  was  for  this  hard,  wise  fellow, 
and  they  say  that  now  everv  time  he  passes  a  manicure 
parlor  he  turns  his  hend  the  other  way  and  says  things 
which  wouldn't  look  well  in  print. 


There  were  times  when  she  did  things  that  were  unconventional 


INVESTING  IN  A  HUSBAND 

Money  makes  the  mare  go. 

Sure. 

That  is,  sometimes,  if  it's  the  right  kind  of  a  mare 
and  there  is  enough  money. 

Take  out  all  the  "ifs"  and  "buts"  and  it  will  be  all 
right. 

The  world  began  with  a  man,  Adam,  and  the  woman 
came  later,  but  the  finish  will  be  different,  for  there 
will  be  a  woman  in  the  last  ditch  giving  or  ready 
to  give  the  avenging  angel  the  stiffest  kind  of  an  argu- 
ment. 

This  story  differs  from  the  Creation  in  that  it"  be- 
gins with  a  woman,  as  all  stories  of  to-day  should. 
And  why  not?  for  take  the  lady  out  of  the  case  and 
there's  no  story  and  never  will  be.  The  slim  finger  of 
a  woman,  you  know,  is  in  every  pie.  Sometimes  it  im- 
proves the  flavor  and  sometimes  it  spoils  it — that's  a 
matter  of  luck — and  there  are  men  who  have  tried 
pies  or  many  fingers,  whichever  simile  you  prefer,  and 
the  result  in  their  cases  is  always  the  same. 

The  girl  in  this  story  had  birth,  and  blood,  and 
breeding  behind  her.  She  also  had  good  looks  and  a 
little  money,  and  that  is  about  all  that  anyone  wants. 
Add  to  that  a  fairly  nice  disposition  and  you  have 
reached  the  limit. 

Of  course,  she  wasn't  perfect  by  any  means.  She 
was  a  bit  whimsical  and  peculiar,  and  her  moods  were 


194  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

as  apparent  as  the  moving  pictures  thrown  on  a  sheet 
in  the  theatre.  She  was  unusual  in  that  her 
moods  were  reflected  in  her  face  with  all  the  truthful- 
ness of  a  mirror.  That  was  the  reason  that  some  said 
she  was  good-looking,  while  others  contended  that  she 
was  most  ordinary.  Take  her  as  I've  often  seen  her, 
when  she  was  cheerful  and  happy-go-lucky,  and  while 
there  was  nothing  about  her  features  that  was  regular 
she  was  attractive  enough  for  anyone,  and  she  could 
make  a  good  many  young  fellows  turn  their  heads  to 
look  after  her  as  she  passed  down  the  street. 

Then  again  something  would  happen,  and  she  would 
seem  to  age  ten  years  in  as  many  hours,  and  a  crop  of 
deep  lines  and  wrinkles  would  spring  out  like  magic. 
But  she  had  magnetism,  and  she  was  forever  standing 
at  the  fork  of  two  roads,  one  of  which  led  to  good  and 
the  other  to  bad.  To  her  it  was  the  toss  of  a  coin  which 
one  she  would  take. 

It  was  while  she  was  in  a  thoughtful  mood,  debat- 
ing with  herself,  that  the  man  came  along.  There's 
an  apology  goes  with  that,  for  he  hadn't  a  vote  yet, 
and  he  was  very  youthful  in  his  ways  and  of  that  age 
where  a  youngster  is  apt  to  tell  more  than  is  good  for 
him,  and  to-  stray  from  the  field  of  fact.  Of  course, 
it's  not  a  crime — it's  only  a  period.  With  his  red 
cheeks  and  baby  complexion  he  looked  like  a  cross  be- 
tween a  stick  of  peppermint  candy  and  one  of  Ra- 
phael's cherubs.  He  was  as  pretty  a  piece  of  embroid- 
ery as  ever  asked  his  mother  for  spending  money,  and 
when  the  girl  saw  him  she  immediately  threw  out  a 
line  and  took  him  in  tow.  Inside  of  twenty-four  hours 
she  had  her  monogram  indelibly  stamped  on  him,  and 
he  was  hers.    Hand  in  hand  they  went  out  to  see  the 


INVESTING    IN    A    HUSBAND  195 

world  and  become  real  sports,  and  it  wasn't  long  be- 
fore wine  was  the  limit  and  it  wasn't  half  good  enough 
at  that.  They  left  a  lurid  streak  up  and  down  the 
line,  but  it  soon  faded  out,  for  they  weren't  financially 
strong  enough  to  make  a  splash  that  would  attract  any 
more  attention  than  a  pair  of  tiny  gold  fish  in  a  two- 
dollar  aquarium. 

After  all,  it  amounts  to  nothing  more  or  less  than  a 
question  of  capacity — stomach  as  well  as  purse,  and  it 
is  rarely  that  the  two  harmonize.  The  man  with  the 
yard-wide  thirst  is  often  handicapped  by  a  purse  with 
complete  or  partial  paralysis. 

And  then  these  two  fell  in  with  other  company  in 
the  shape  of  a  man  and  woman  whose  nuptials  had 
been  attended  by  incidents  of  a  more  or  less  exciting 
character,  the  star  part  of  which  was  an  elopement 
which  savored  more  of  desire  than  genius  in  its  ar- 
rangements. They  had  succeeded  so  well  in  their  new 
venture  that  they  owned  the  entire  contents  of  a  flat 
across  the  river  in  Jersey,  and  being  still  in  the  throes 
of  love  themselves — or  thinking  they  were — they  were 
headquarters  for  everything  that  seemed  like  an  affair 
of  the  heart.  Some  who  were  not  their  friends  were 
unkind  enough  to  say  that  it  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  case  of  misery  loving  company,  and  that 
being  on  the  coals  themselves  this  couple  enjoyed  lead- 
ing others  to  the  broiler.  But  that's  unkind  and 
really  ought  not  to  be  believed. 

However,  many  a  racket  came  off  in  the  flat,  and 
they  all  went  as  hot  a  pace  as  wind  and  weather  per- 
mitted, until  even  a  rank  outsider  would  have  said  it 
was  time  for  a  minister  to  get  on  the  job  and  do  what 
he  could  to  make  things  legal. 


1 96  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

The  cork  popped  from  a  bottle  of  wine  and  the  juice 
of  the  grape  sizzled  out. 

"What  do  you  say,  Kid,  let's  get  married?" 

"All  right,  I'm  game  if  you  are;  you  can't  phaze 
me,"  she  said. 

"Well,  how  about  to-night?" 

"The    sooner   the   better." 

Talk  about  quick  action,  it  was  here  with  a  venge- 
ance. 

Four  people  on  a  ferryboat,  then  an  elevated  rail- 
road and  the  ringing  of  a  minister's  door  bell. 

It's  all  very  simple. 

The  dinner  afterward  in  a  cafe,  very  informal,  you 
know,  to  harmonize  with  the  ceremony,  with  a  couple 
of  quarts  for  luck  sandwiched  in  by  cocktails  and  high- 
balls ;  then  a  few  brief  telegrams : 

"Married  to-night;  wish  us  luck;"  you  know  the 
rest. 

It  was  all  right,  after  all,  apparently,  and  every- 
body did  wish  them  luck,  even  if  there  were  a  few  bad 
spots  in  the  job.  But,  you  see,  they  suited  themselves 
and  there  was  no  one  else  to  be  taken  into  considera- 
tion, not  even  the  relatives.  This  going  around  and 
holding  consultations  in  advance  is  no  good,  and  peo- 
ple who  are  in  love  or  who  think  they  are  in  love 
don't  want  advice  of  any  kind,  except  the  kind  that 
rings  the  door  bell  of  a  minister's  hut  or  buys  a  wed- 
ding ring  and  sends  it  with  the  words : 

"Get-  busy  before  it  is  too  late." 

I'm  no  critic,  and  I  don't  pretend  to  criticise 
here.  I'm  simply  telling  a  story  which  may  or  may 
not  be  true,  but  I'm  not  going  to  be  responsible  for  it 
any  more  than  the  man  who  rents  a  place  and  plants 


INVESTING    IN    A    HUSBAND  197 

flowers  in  the  garden  is  responsible  for  the  architecture 
of  the  house  on  the  premises. 

It  is  said  that  the  bride  in  this  case  was  kind  enough 
to  supply  the  funds  for  the  honeymoon,  while  the  nice 
boy  supplied  the  beauty  and  called  it  even.  In  the 
eyes  of  the  lady  it  seems  a  fair  enough  proposition, 
but  harsh  things  are  liable  to  be  said  of  such  a  combi- 
nation, even  though  it  is  no  one's  business. 

When  they  returned  from  the  fields  of  fruits  and 
flowers  the  boy  had  made  up  his  mind,  like  the  Count 
Boni  de  Castellane,  that  being  a  husband  was  much 
better  than  holding  down  a  job  in  an  office,  and  so 
they  settled  in  New  York  like  a  pair  of  pigeons  after 
a  long  flight.  He  had  no  more  idea  of  the  responsi- 
bilities of  married  life  than  a  six-months'-old  infant 
has  of  playing  the  races.  With  a  place  to  sleep  and 
a  feed  bag  always  ready  for  his  face  he  was  satisfied, 
but  that  was  because  of  his  youth.  You  see,  marry- 
ing from  the  cradle  has  both  its  advantages  and  its 
drawbacks,  according  to  the  way  you  look  at  it. 

For  him  every  morning  was  Christmas,  and  the  tree 
was  always  fixed  up  with  something  nice  with  his 
name  on  it.  Do  you  blame  him  for  looking  pleasant? 
Press  the  button  for  a  dollar,  press  it  twice  and  you 
get  five.  Just  as  easy  as  drawing  money  out  of  the 
bank  when  you  have  a  check  book. 

But  with  all  going  out  and  nothing  coming  in  it 
doesn't  last  long,  and  when  he  had  swept  up  all  the 
spare  change  in  sight  he  began  to  cast  his  covetous  eye 
upon  the  big  bundle  that  was  tied  up  with  a  woolen 
string. 

He  knew  something  about  the  racing  game — just 
enough  to  get  stung  when  the  time  came — and  he  knew 


ig8  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

a  man  who  was  good  enough  to  offer  him  a  half  inter- 
est in  a  racing  mare  that  had  been  kept  under  cover 
for  a  year  or  so,  but  who  could,  if  she  was  let  out,  beat 
anything  that  ever  wore  pigskin.  To  that  infantile 
mind  of  his  this  was  the  one  great  chance  of  a  lifetime 
and  the  thousand-dollar  bill  was  the  key  which  would 
unlock  the  door  to  wealth. 

Money  without  working  for  it. 

Why  it  was  a  pipe.  Besides,  it  made  a  beautiful  and 
alluring  tale  for  the  bride,  who  had  reached  that  stage 
where  she  didn't  want  her  boy  away  from  her,  not  even 
for  a  minute.  With  the  thousand  he  would  make  the 
initial  investment,  and  with  the  rest  of  the  bank  roll  he 
would  bet.  With  paper  and  pencils  they  sat  at  the 
table  one  night  and  rolled  up  two  thousand  to  the  for- 
tune of  a  Rockefeller. 

How  easy  it  is  to  make  money  that  way.  All  you 
have  to  do  is  to  begin  with  any  amount,  even  a  penny, 
and  if  your  pencil  holds  out  you'll  have  a  million  in 
less  than  no  time,  but  you  can't  buy  anything  with  it — 
there's  the  trouble.  The  man  in  the  insane  asylum 
who  imagined  that  every  stone  in  the  construction  of 
the  building  was  of  pure  gold  and  that  it  belonged  to 
him  was  just  as  rich  in  his  own  mind  as  the  wealthiest 
human  being  in  the  world — and  happier,  too,  I'll  bet 
you. 

They  planned  it  all  out,  even  to  the  trip  to  Europe  on 
the  winnings  of  the  first  big  race,  for  she  would  carry 
odds  of  not  less  than  20  to  1,  because  she  was  un- 
known. 

A  little  trip  down  to  the  bank  and  out  came  the 
money  in  brand  new  bills  that  were  very  good  to 
look  at. 


INVESTING    IN    A    HUSBAND 


199 


So  the  first  step  was  taken,  and  the  boy  made  up  his 
mind  that  he  had  turned  his  back  forever  upon  such 
things  as  ten-dollar-a-week  jobs. 

It  doesn't  require  any  ingenuity  or  brains  for  a  man 
to  separate  himself  from  such  things  as  thousand-dol- 
lar bills — in  fact  it's  quite  easy.  Consequently  it  didn't 
require  any  brain  work  on  the  part  of  the  boy  to  de- 
plete the  account  by  just  that  amount  within  a  very 
short  time.  For  his  new  bill  he  received  in  return 
a  slip  of  paper  which  stated  that  he  was  the  half  owner 
of  the  racing  mare  known  as  Blue  Monday,  and  that 
in  consideration  of  his  paying  one-half  of  the  training 
expenses  of  the  said  mare  he  was  to  be  entitled  to  one- 
half  of  the  winnings,  less  jockey  fees  and  other  in- 
cidentals. 

To  him  it  sounded  beautiful  and  it  took  not  lessUhan 
one  quart  to  celebrate  this  new  business  venture — paid 
for  by  the  lady,  of  course,  but  still,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  one,  it  was  all  right. 

Then  there  began  to  come  to  him  via  the  U.  S.  Mail, 
certain  sundry  statements  concerning  the  expenses  of 
putting  this  fine  bit  of  horse  flesh  into  the  proper  con- 
dition to  bring  home  the  money,  and  the  request  for 
immediate  remittance.  There  was  variety  enough 
about  these  statements,  too,  to  satisfy  the  most  fastidi- 
ous, and  the  amounts  ranged  all  the  way  from  six  dol- 
lars and  fifty  cents  to  an  even  hundred.  The  clever 
mind  of  the  bride  took  in  the  situation  at  a  glance,  but 
the  faith  of  the  optimistic  kid  held  as  fast  as  a  ship's 
anchor  to  a  rock  ledge,  and  he  could  see  nothing  but 
success  in  the  near  future. 

You  know  there  is  never  a  day  so  far  away  that  it 
doesn't  come  at  last.     So  it  was  that  the  day  of  the 


200  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

long  expected  race  arrived  and  down  deep  in  the 
trousers  pockets  of  the  Pink  Cheeked  One  was  $150, 
the  last  shot  in  the  locker. 

"It's  all-right,  Kid,"  he  said  to  her.  "It's  just  as  I 
thought,  she's  a  twenty-five  to  one  shot,  and  I'm  going 
to  plank  every  cent  down.  At  those  odds  we'll  take 
home  with  us  $3,750,  and  I  guess  that'll  hold  us  for 
awhile.     How  about  it?" 

"But  suppose  she  doesn't  win?" 

"Doesn't  win  ?  What's  the  matter  with  you — are  you 
getting  cold  feet  ?  How  can  she  lose  ?  Didn't  we  clock 
her  this  morning  on  the  try-out  and  didn't  she  beat 
the  track  time?  Wait  till  you  know  more  about  this 
game  and  you'll  see  where  I'm  right." 

I  don't  know  much  more  about  it  than  that,  but  the 
files  of  papers  of  that  date  show  me  that  Blue  Mon- 
day, mare,  3-year-old,  was  entered  for  the  Seaside 
stakes  of  $1,500,  at  odds  of  25  to  1 ;  there  was  a  good 
start,  with  her  in  the  lead.  At  the  quarter  she  had 
fallen  back  to  fourth,  at  the  half  she  had  crept  up  until 
she  lapped  the  second  horse. 

She  finished  seventh. 

I  should  say  that  blue-eyed  boy  was  looking  for  a 
job  the  next  day,  but  I'm  not  fortune  teller  enough  to 
know  whether  he  connected  or  not. 


TRAINING  AN  OLD  SPORT 

Come  and  listen  to  the  siren  song  of  the  New 
York  girl,  and  perhaps  it  may  interest  you  for  awhile. 
There  is  no  question  about  it  unless  you  are  a  bronze 
statue  standing  on  a  gray  stone  pedestal  in  some  park, 
or  a  cigar  store  Indian  with  an  Hebraic  nose  and  a 
wooden  tomahawk.  In  the  first  place  the  New  York 
girl  has  been  conceded  to  be  a  wonder  and  about  the 
best  in  the  world  in  looks  as  well  as  in  figure.  She 
has  a  fine  complexion  when  she  gives  it  a  chance  to 
show  itself,  and,  like  the  little  girl  in  the  story  book, 
when  she's  good  she's  very,  very  good,  and  when  she's 
bad  she's  a  peach.  The  thing  is  to  pick  out  the  right 
one,  and  your  chances  for  that  are  just  as  good  as 
drawing  to  a  pair  in  poker.  Some  say  it's  luck,  while 
others  favor  the  science  idea. 

With  that  for  an  overture,  let's  ring  the  bell  for  the 
curtain  to  go  up  on  the  charming  little  two-act  play, 
entitled  "The  Redemption  of  a  Sport." 

The  Old  Sport  has  been  up  against  every  proposition 
the  sun  ever  shone  on,  and  there  was  nothing  he 
wasn't  fly  to.  He  had  paid  board  for  blondes  and 
brunettes  as  well  as  a  few  Leslie  Carters,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  an  Albino  he  once  took  a  fancy  to.  He  was  an 
early  and  late  bird,  and  he  was  known  up  and  down 
the  line  by  his  first  name,  which  is  a  distinction  that  it 
usually  takes  a  lot  of  money  or  a  number  of  years,  and 


A  light  flashed  out  on  the  landing  and  revealed  the  figure  of  a  beautiful  woman 


TRAINING    AN    OLD    SPORT  203 

sometimes  both,  to  acquire,  and  even  then  it's  not  a 
lead  pipe  cinch  that  you'll  land  it  right. 

This  fellow  was  good  to  the  girls,  and  could  be  relied 
on  for  a  five-case  note  on  a  hurry  touch  at  any  time, 
for  he  had  no  buttons  on  his  pockets,  and  he  knew 
that  safe  deposit  vaults  in  heaven  are  only  used  for 
the  storing  of  golden  crowns  in  hot  weather. 

"If  I  can't  take  my  money  with  me,"  he  said  once, 
"then  I'll  spend  it  here,  for  if  there's  anything  in  the 
world  that  I  hate  it  is  to  think  that  there's  going  to  be 
a  lot  of  hungry  relatives  picking  over  the  bones  of  my 
estate  before  I  get  comfortably  settled  in  the  six  feet 
of  real  estate  that  no  one  can  beat  me  out  of.  The 
money's  got  to  be  spent  some  time,  and  I'm  going  to  be 
the  one  to  get  the  credit  for  it  because  it's  mine." 

But  there  came  a  time  in  his  life  when  he  felt  that 
he  wanted  to  get  away  from  the  mob.  He  had  been 
stung  by  the  bee  of  domesticity  and  didn't  know  it. 
What  he  did  know  was  that  he  wanted  a  place  with  a 
real  woman  in  it,  where  he  could  hang  his  hat  and  that 
he  could  call  his  own.  If  he  had  wanted  to  put  his 
brains  at  work  he  would  have  known  that  it  was  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  the  law  of  nature  which  had 
him  fast — that  same  law  which  makes  a  bird  build  a 
nest  in  a  tree,  or  a  wild  animal  pre-empt  a  bed  of  moss 
under  the  roots  of  a  certain  tree. 

It  was  the  home  instinct. 

So  he  began  to  cast  his  eye  around  for  a  side  partner 
whom  he  could  have  and  hold,  even  if  he  had  to  coax 
her  up  to  the  altar  with  a  marriage  license  printed  in 
red  and  gold  and  lasso  her  with  a  wedding  ring.  From 
that  time  on  he  was  always  on  the  alert  for  the  right 
one  to  come  along,  and  every  time  he  heard  a  sound 


204  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

like  a  skirt  he  made  an  investigation.  In  about  ten 
days  he  turned  down  all  the  Dollies  and  Mauds  of 
the  Line,  for  he  couldn't  see  where  they  would  have  a 
look-in  if  the  cook  happened  to  leave  in  a  hurry  and 
he  arrived  home  with  a  backwoods  appetite.  You  see 
he  wanted  a  gas-stove  performer  who  could  in  an 
emergency  tell  the  difference  between  a  roast  and  a 
ragout  in  the  raw  state,  and  who  could  juggle  with  a 
lot  of  cold  grub  in  the  ice  box,  and  turn  out  a  square 
meal  that  was  not  only  hot  but  nourishing.  He  was 
tired  of  restaurant  hash,  anyhow,  and  he  was  longing 
for  the  kind  of  biscuits  that  mother  used  to  make. 

He  figured  for  awhile  on  a  girl  named  Elsie,  who 
could  make  a  cocktail  to  beat  the  band,  and  who  could 
also  drink  more  and  get  away  with  it  than  any  of*the 
rest.  She  was  a  good  looker,  too,  and  she  had  trotted 
in  double  harness  before,  but  he  found  out  that  she 
was  a  bit  promiscuous  in  her  tastes,  and  he  didn'ttcare 
tc  feel  that  he  had  to  stay  at  home  all  the  time  in  order 
to  keep  her  from  entertaining  any  stranger  in  a  pair 
of  trousers  who  happened  along.  So  he  put  a  red  cross, 
which  means  "Danger,  Keep  Off,"  opposite  her  name, 
and  began  looking  in  another  direction. 

He  changed  his  tactics  completely. 

"I'm  on  now,''  he  said  to  himself.  "I'll  hunt  up  some 
nice  little«innocent  girl  who  doesn't  know  anything  of 
the  world,  and  who  has  taken  a  course  in  a  cooking 
school.  I  want  the  kind  whose  ambition  in  life  is  to  be 
boss  of  a  nice  three-story  house,  and  who  doesn't  care 
any  more  for  Broadway  than  a  hobo  does  for  a  hot 
bath.  I'll  just  hunt  up  some  mother's  girl  who  has  her 
hair  hanging  down  her  back  in  a  big,  thick  braid,  and 


TRAINING    AN    OLD    SPORT  205 

I'll  sing  her  a  song  that'll  make  her  think  I'm  the  real 
thing  on  wheels." 

So  with  that  very  laudable  and  commendable  idea  he 
started  out.  He  didn't  figure  that  a  tough  old  nut  like 
he  was  had  any  right  to  go  up  against  a  game  like  that, 
and  that  his  play  was  to  mix  with  people  of  his  own 
class.  But  you'll  find  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  that  the 
worse  a  man  is  or  has  been  the  more  innocence  and 
purity  he  wants  when  he  is  figuring  on  giving  a  sky 
pilot  a  chance  to  make  a  dollar  or  two. 

But  having  made  up  his  mind  the  kind  of  a  field  he 
was  going  to  hunt,  the  next  question  was  how  to  break 
in.  All  the  girls  he  knew  were,  without  exception,  of 
the  brand  which  are  at  their  best  when  the  lights  are 
turned  on,  who  rent  flats  for  business  purposes,  and 
who  change  quarters  when  an  intimation  is  made  by 
the  captain  of  a  police  precinct  that  the  change  will  do 
them  good.  To  save  his  life  he  couldn't  figure  out  this 
new  proposition,  and  he  was  like  the  man  who  bought 
a  new  double-barreled  shotgun  and  then  found  out  he 
couldn't  get  a  permit  to  hunt  the  birds  the  old  farmer 
owned. 

And  now  right  here,  at  the  critical  moment,  in  steps 
fate,  luck,  or  destiny,  it  doesn't  matter  which,  for  they 
are  all  the  same,  and  shuffles  the  cards  for  a  new  deal. 

An  automobile  on  Broadway  bumped  hard  enough 
into  the  rear  end  of  a  hansom  cab  to  almost  throw  the 
driver  from  his  seat  and  to  make  him  swear  a  blue 
streak  of  profane  eloquence.  The  usual  crowd  collect- 
ed, and  in  the  bunch  caught  there  by  the  sudden  rush 
of  curious  and  morbid  humanity  was  the  Old  Sport. 
He  pushed  with  both  elbows  to  free  himself  and  then 
stepped  back  testily.    A  girl  behind  him  cried  out  with 


206  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

pair.,  and  he  turned  suddenly  around  to  find  himself 
face  to  face  with  as  choice  a  little  blonde  as  ever  car- 
ried books  home  from  school,  and,  furthermore,  she 
had  a  braid  down  her  back. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  did  I  hurt  you  ?"  he  asked. 

"I'm  afraid  you  did ;  you  stepped  on  my  foot." 

"Well,  just  take  my  arm  and  let  me  help  you  out  of 
this  crowd." 

Easy  if  you  only  know  how  and  the  chance  comes 
your  way. 

The  Old  Sport  wasn't  really  old — not  over  forty — 
and  he  was  there  with  the  looks,  and  the  little  lady 
rather  liked  the  way  he  framed  up,  as  anyone  could  see 
by  the  way  she  cuddled  up  to  him  as  she  limped  along. 
His  heart  was  beating  it  like  a  yeggman  coming  East 
on  a  brake  beam,  and  already  he  was  figuring  on  how 
to  handle  this  new  proposition. 

If  it  had  been  one  of  those  other  girls  he  would  have 
said: 

"You  just  send  your  trunk  up  to  my  place,  and  we'll 
go  around  and  have  a  talk  to  a  minister;  how  about 
it?" 

But  he  couldn't  say  that  to  this  girl  with  the  pink  in 
her  cheeks  and  the  fluffy  hair  that  had  never  been  up 
against  the  peroxide. 

"Foot  pretty  bad,  Kid?"  was  the  way  he  broke  the 
ice. 

"Oh,  no,  thank  you,  it's  all  right  now,  but  it  hurt  me 
a  lot  at  first." 

"Live  far  from  here  ?"  he  came  back  again. 

""No,  not  very  far;  only  Fifty-third  street." 

There  was  only  ten  blocks  to  go,  and  when  they  got 
to  the  last  one  he  knew  all  about  her.    He  knew  that 


TRAINING    AN    OLD    SPORT  207 

she  was  living  with  her  aunt,  and  that  she  was  taking 
music  lessons  because  some  day  she  hoped  to  be  able  to 
teach.  As  they  paused  for  a  moment  on  the  corner, 
he  said: 

"If  you  should  happen  along  on  Forty-second  street 
to-morrow  about  2,  I'll  be  glad  to  see  you." 

It  was  a  bit  crude,  but  it  went  all  right  and  the  date 
was  made.  When  she"  walked  away  he  stood  looking 
after  her,  and  he  noticed  that  she  had  a  nice  trim  fig- 
ure, a  dainty  little  foot  and  that  she  stepped  out  like  a 
thoroughbred. 

"You  for  me,"  he  remarked,  and  then  he  hustled 
back  to  find  some  one  he  could  treat,  so  great  was  his 
joy. 

So  there's  the  picture,  to  use  a  theatrical  term,  and 
the  curtain  goes  down  on  it  for  the  end  of  the  first  act. 

Now,  you  and  I  and  some  of  the  rest  of  the  thirsty 
crowd  will  go  out  and  have  a  drink  between  acts,  but 
it's  a  warm  night  and  instead  of  one  drink  there's  half 
a  dozen.  Time  flies  when  you're  in  good  company  and 
the  Old  Sport  was  taking  no  chances.  Ten  interviews 
with  the  girl — ten  good,  square,  honest  talks  at  the 
rate  of  a  talk  a  day — and  she  consented  to  take  a  chance 
with  him  and  tell  the  folks  afterward.  He  was  on  the 
level,  though,  and  when  she  went  home  a  couple  of 
days  later  she  had  the  little  certificate  with  her,  and 
after  a  few  tears  Auntie  was  invited  around  to  visit  her 
new  nephew  and  look  over  the  new  house. 

As  for  the  Sport,  he  settled  down  as  comfortably  as 
an  old  buff  Cochin-China  hen  on  a  dozen  eggs,  and  he 
made  up  his  mind  that  he  had  been  missing  a  good 
many  years  of  real  dyed-in-the-wool  happiness  while 


208  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

he  was  traveling  The  Line  with  the  bunch  and  throw- 
ing all  kinds  of  booze  under  his  belt. 

But  when  the  weeks  began  to  add  themselves  into 
months  he  grew  a  bit  restless  of  nights  and  it  came 
pretty  hard  when  any  of  the  boys  asked  him  to  come 
along  and  help  them  crack  a  bottle.  He  took  the 
Mrs.  to  the  show  once  in  a  while,  but  it  was  always  a 
case  of  hurry  home  as  soon  as  the  orchestra  began  to 
play  "My  Country,  Tis  of  Thee."  He  didn't  want  to 
take  a  chance  of  being  caught  by  any  of  the  Merry- 
Merrys  who  were  out  for  the  rent  and  guyed  for  "mar- 
rying decent."  Once  or  twice  he  thought  he  had  made 
a  mistake  and  that  the  change  was  too  great  or  too 
sudden  for  him,  but  an  hour  later  when  he  had  his 
slippers  on  and  was  planted  in  the  big  armchair  in  the 
corner,  he  knew  he  wouldn't  make  any  kind  of  a 
change  for  the  world,  and  he  felt  that  he  had  lost  a 
good  many  years  out  of  his  life  in  not  getting  into  this 
kind  of  a  game  sooner.  Like  an  old  fire  horse,  he  was 
all  right  as  long  as  he  didn't  smell  fire.  But  the  time 
was  coming,  and  it  was  as  sure  as  rent,  taxes  or  death. 

It  came  when  he  went  out  one  night  to  be  gone  not 
more  than  a  half  hour,  and  when  he  tried  his  key  in 
the  lock  it  was  2  A.  M.,  and  the  girl,  her  eyes  red  from 
crying  with  the  desertion  and  the  loneliness  of  it  all, 
had  fallen  asleep,  fully  dressed,  across  the  foot  of  the 
bed.  He  was  very  sorry  and  penitent,  but  for  all  that 
he  went  out  the  next  night  just  the  same,  and  after 
that  he  was  never  in.  He  was  back  on  the  old  trail, 
mixing  once  more,  to  the  great  delight  of  the  crowd. 
The  novelty  of  home  had  worn  off,  and  when  his  wife 
waited  up  for  him  she  usually  found  him  too  drunk  to 
understand  what  she  was  saying  to  him.     From  one 


TRAINING    AN    OLD    SPORT  209 

step  it  is  easy  to  take  another,  or,  as  the  Chinese  say, 
the  creeper  always  walks  in  the  end.  He  took  to  bring- 
ing friends  home  with  him  at  all  hours,  especially  be- 
tween three  and  six  in  the  morning,  and  their  arrival 
was  always  made  apparent  by  the  wild  time  they  had 
scrambling  up  the  stairs. 

Now,  in  this  story — as  in  real  life — always  keep  your 
eye  on  the  lady.  It  doesn't  make  any  difference  where 
she  comes  from,  whether  it's  New  York  City  or  Lower 
Squankum,  New  Jersey,  she  is  either  one  of  two  things, 
very  clever  or  very  dull.  There  is  no  medium,  for 
what  may  seem  to  you  like  a  medium  is  only  a  counter- 
feit and  not  the  real  article.  For  every  ninety-nine  dull 
women  there  is  one  clever  woman ;  for  every  ninety- 
nine  clever  women  there  is  one  ace  who  tops  the 
rest  as  easily  as  Mont  Blanc  tops  an  ant  hill.  The  wife 
in  this  case  was  not  one  of  the  dullards,  that's  a  cinch. 
If  she  had  been  she  would  have  made  an  idiot  of  her- 
self and  acted  the  way  the  rest  of  them  do — which  is 
a  great  nuisance  and  annoying  to  any  man.  She  was 
a  genius,  and  I  ask  you  to  take  off  your  hat  to  her — 
as  I  do. 

"I  notice,"  she  remarked  to  Old  Sport  one  morning, 
"that  you  never  bring  more  than  one  friend  home 
with  you  when  you  arrive.  Why  don't  you  bring  half 
a  dozen,  or  three,  anyhow  ?  It  would  be  much  more 
companionable." 

He  was  a  bit  on  his  guard  at  first,  but  she  convinced 
him  that  she  was  serious  about  it,  and  then  he  began  to 
congratulate  himself  that  he  had  his  wife  well  in  hand. 

Two  nights  later  he  arrived  with  half  a  dozen  of  the 
hottest  hooters  that  ever  held  an  all-night  session  in  a 
furnished  flat.     He  let  them  in  with  his  kev,  and  as 


210  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

they  paused  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  a  clock  from 
somewhere  chimed  out  a  silvery  "three." 

"Come  on,  boys ;  open  house  here ;  everything  goes/' 
said  Old  Sport.  "My  wife  says  my  friends  are  good 
enough  for  her  if  they're  good  enough  for  me.  Come 
on." 

He,  with  another,  made  the  start  up  the  stairs,  but 
they  hadn't  gone  more  than  a  few  steps  when  a  brilliant 
light  from  the  landing  somewhere  fairly  dazzled  them. 

Directly  in  front  of  them,  apparently  in  the  act  of 
stepping  out  of  a  huge  picture  frame,  was  the  sym- 
metrical figure  of  an  almost  nude  woman.  The  light 
struck  her  just  right  and  brought  out  every  detail. 

"Great,"  shouted  someone  from  the  foot  of  the 
stairs. 

"Shut  up,  you  fool,  it's  my  wife,"  answered  the 
Sport.  "Put  out  that  light  up  there,  do  you  hear?  Put 
it  out." 

But  it  blazed  away  as  steadily  as  ever,  and  there  was 
no  movement  on  the  part  of  the  figure,  except  that  the 
full  bosom  rose  and  fell  with  the  regularity  of  her 
breathing. 

The  Sport  turned  around  on  the  stairs. 

"Come  out  of  here,  you  fellows  ;  this  is  going  too  far. 
Come  on,  skiddoo,  all  of  you." 

And  when  the  last  one  had  gone  out  he  slammed  the 
door  behind  them.  What  happened  inside  is  none  of 
your  business,  nor  mine,  either,  because  I  don't  believe 
in  scandal,  but  any  evening  the  Old  Sport  is  wanted  he 
will  be  found  at  his  home  address  with  his  wife  and  a 
kid  who  looks  like  him. 

As  for  the  lady ;  she  has  a  genius  that  she  is  just  be- 
ginning to  appreciate. 


CONCERNING  A  SYRIAN  BEAUTY 

Transplant  the  Oriental  to  the  Occident,  or  in  plain 
words  bring"  a  nice-looking  girl  from  the  East  to  New 
York,  for  instance,  and  nine  times  out  of  ten  there  is 
sure  to  be  something  doing.  Most  of  the  doings,  to  be 
sure,  are  under  the  rose,  but  every  once  in  a  while 
some  hint  bobs  to  the  surface  and  the  news  is  wafted 
about  by  every  breeze  of  a  whisper. 

In  his  very  handsomely  appointed  suite  of  apart- 
ments on  the  upper  West  Side  is  a  young  fellow  who 
has  good  enough  blood  in  his  veins  to  be  game  and  take 
his  medicine,  and  with  sense  enough  to  keep  his  mouth 
shut.  Across  the  bridge  of  his  nose  are  three  knife 
cuts  made  by  a  blade  that  was  very  keen,  which  was 
held  by  a  hand  that  knew  its  business.  His  doctor 
tells  him  that  it  is  not  at  all  serious,  even  though  in- 
convenient— you  know  how  doctors  talk  when  there 
is  a  good  fat  fee  at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  He  also 
says  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  that  will  pre- 
vent and  eradicate  those  three  disfiguring,  scars,  even 
after  the  wound  has  been  thoroughly  healed  and  every 
possible  surgical  precaution  taken. 

And  there's  the  rub. 

Through  all  the  rest  of  his  life  this  man,  upon  whom 
the  world  has  been  smiling  since  his  birth,  will  be 
marked  with  the  signs  of  his  folly. 

So  much  for  the  present. 

Now  for  the  recent  past. 


Put  her  in  tights  and  she  would  have  been  an  Oriental  sensation 


CONCERNING    A    SYRIAN    BEAUTY  2X3 

The  woman  was  a  Syrian  beauty  with  sloe  eyes  and 
an  olive  skin  that  was  like  a  piece  of  copper-hued  satin, 
so  soft  and  smooth  and  free  from  blemish  was  it. 
There  was  a  faint  flush  of  red  in  her  cheeks,  too,  as  if 
the  hot  blood  was  trying  to  break  through  the  tender 
skin.  Her  lips  were  red  and  full,  and  because  of  all 
that  riot  of  color  her  teeth  showed  whiter  than  they 
really  were.  She  had,  besides,  small  feet  and  slim, 
trim  ankles. 

Any  wise  man  will  appreciate  that  and  understand 
why  they  are  brought  into  this  story.  Up  to  the  age 
of  twenty-five  the  male  animal  looks  at  the  female 
face  and  is  satisfied.  After  that  no  such  casual  scrutiny 
satisfies  him.  First  face,  hair  and  general  contour, 
then  ankles,  and  often  it  is  the  last  view  which  does 
the  work  or  turns  the  trick,  which  is  the  same  thing, 
only  it  is  expressed  differently.  This  is  with  the  as- 
sumption, of  course,  that  the  man  has  enough  dis- 
crimination to  want  quality,  not  quantity.  Quantity  is 
unwieldy  and  unsatisfactory  from  every  viewpoint 
except  from  that  of  the  gentleman  who  is  in  the 
butcher  business,  and  who  wants  a  standing  advertise- 
ment for  his  shop.  Embonpoint  is  all  right  in  sausages 
but  not  in  women,  excepting — and  that  is  understood 
— those  on  dime  museum  platforms. 

The  first  name  of  the  lady  was  Dekka,  the  rest  was 
unpronounceable  and  we'll  let  it  go  at  that.  She  was  a 
seller  of  Oriental  goods,  not  from  a  Tenderloin  stand- 
point, but  real  merchandise  such  as  is  recognized  by 
the  law — laces,  draperies,  bits  of  cunningly  embroid- 
ered silks,  and  even  rugs,  which  she  called  carpets, 
with  the  accent  on  the  first  syllable.  Her  stock  was 
carried  in  a  dress  suit  case  which  was  handled  by  her 


214  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"brother,"  who  was  also  a  Syrian,  and  he  only  resem- 
bled her  because  he,  too,  had  black  eyes,  an  olive  skin 
and  dark  crispy  hair,  to  say  nothing  of  his  small  feet. 

Day  after  day  they  went  in  and  out  of  houses,  flats 
and  apartments,  visiting  none  but  the  best,  and  calling 
an  express  wagon  into  service  when  a  rug  display  was 
necessary.  She  was  the  brains  of  the  combination  and 
did  all  the  selling.  His  job  was  done  when  he  put  the 
satchel  down  by  her  side.  Then  he  effaced  himself  and 
was  invisible  until  she  was  ready  to  exit,  when  he  made 
a  mysterious  reappearance  from  somewhere. 

And  that's  the  soup  of  the  story ;  the  roast  follows. 

The  Jap  valet  to  the  young  man  of  means  and  leisure 
announced  to  him  one  afternoon  that  a  dark  lady — 
makes  you  think  of  the  queen  of  spades,  doesn't  it? — 
wanted  to  see  him  and  wouldn't  take  no  for  an  answer. 

"Bring  her  in,"  said  Jimmy,  who  was  feeling  in  just 
the  right  kind  of  a  humor  to  see  anyone,  even  a  man 
tc  whom  he  owed  money,  and  in  a  moment  she  had 
slipped  into  the  room  as  lightly  as  a  cat  walking  on 
wet  grass.  There  was  the  sound  of  her  French  heels 
hitting  the  bare  spots  on  the  polished  floor  that  was 
music  to  him,  and  he  wondered  what  there  was  in  the 
meeting  of  leather  and  wood  that  was  so  attractive  and 
just  a  bit  different  from  anything  he  had  ever  heard 
before. 

She  courtesied  in  a  friendly,  intimate  sort  of  a  way, 
and  then  spoke: 

"Good  day ;  the  lady  ?  Can  I  show  her  some  laces  ? 
Very  fine." 

There  was  just  the  faintest  touch  of  an  accent  in  her 
voice,  but  it  was  rather  pleasant  than  otherwise,  and  it 
seemed  to  have  a  very  soothing  effect  on  him. 


CONCERNING    A    SYRIAN    BEAUTY  215 

"There  is  no  lady  here,"  he  laughed,  "that  is,  not 
yet." 

"Ah,  too  bad,  and  such  a  nice  place,  too.  It  is  so 
beautiful." 

She  half  turned  as  if  to  go,  and  he  stepped  toward 
her. 

"What  have  you  got  to  sell?  I  might  buy  some- 
thing." 

"You  are  so  kind ;  I  have  them  here,"  and  she  mo- 
tioned to  the  next  room.  "My  brother  bring  them,  then 
he  go  'way.    It  is  very  heavy  to  carry  all  the  time." 

"Yama,"  called  he,  "bring  it  in,  whatever  it  is,"  and 
in  a  moment  the  Jap  came  lugging  the  leather  case. 

Jimmy  noted  how  deftly  the  shapely  brown  fingers 
unfastened  the  brass  catches,  and  as  she  leaned  over 
he  found  himself  studying  her  with  the  eye  of  a  man 
who  has  seen  and  known  a  great  many  women  of  all 
kinds  and  all  nationalities  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
and  one  of  the  exceptions  was  Syrian.  A  faint  per- 
fume, the  odor  of  which  he  failed  to  recognize,  seemed 
to  fill  the  room,  and  he  knew  it  came  from  her,  and  he 
became  suddenly  aware  that  he  was  taking  more  inter- 
est in  the  saleswoman  than  he  was  in  the  goods  she 
was  about  to  offer  him. 

When  the  bag  had  been  opened  and  the  contents 
tumbled  out  promiscuously,  without  any  attempt  at 
order  or  display,  she  sat  down  on  the  rug  beside  them. 
She  picked  out  a  lace  scarf  and  carefully  smoothing  out 
its  folds  held  it  before  him. 

"Very  fine,"  she  said ;  "all  made  by  hand,  see  ?"  and 
she  pointed  to  the  heavy  embroidery. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  answered,  but  he  wasn't  looking 
at  the  silk,  he  was  looking  straight  in  her  eyes  and 


216  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

wondering  why  it  was  he  had  never  met  a  woman  with 
eyes  as  black  as  those  before. 

"You  are  not  looking,"  she  said. 

"I  am,"  he  replied. 

"At  the  scarf,  I  mean." 

"No,  there  is  something  better." 

"But  I  am  only  selling  the  scarf  to  you,"  and  she  be- 
gan to  fold  it  up  while  her  cheeks  became  more  red. 

"What's  the  price?"  asked  Jimmy. 

"Only  $6,  and  very  cheap." 

"All  right,  I'll  take  it ;  let  me  see  what  else  you've 
got  there." 

And  presently  they  were  both  sitting  on  the  rug,  he 
on  one  side  of  the  bag  and  she  on  the  other.  In  a  half 
hour  he  had  spent  one  hundred  dollars,  but  to  save  his 
life  he  couldn't  have  told  what  it  was  he  had  bought 
and,  what  was  more,  he  didn't  care. 

He  laid  the  crisp  new  bill  on  her  knee,  and  as  she 
began  to  fold  up  the  remnant  of  her  stock  he  asked 
questions. 

"You  said  your  brother  went  around  with  you.  Is 
he  really  your  brother  or  something  else?" 

"My  own  brother;  why  should  I  tell  you  a  lie?" 

"I  don't  know  except  that  there  are  a  great  many 
brothers  and  cousins  in  this  world  who  are  not  brothers 
or  cousins  at  all,  except  as  a  matter  of  convenience. 
You  know,  I  think  you  are  a  nice  little  girl  and  I  fancy 
I'm  getting  just  a  bit  gone  on  you.  I  don't  mind  buy- 
ing things  from  you,  but  I  should  like  it  if  you  and  I 
could  be  friends." 

By  this  time  they  were  standing  up  ;  the  suit  case  had 
been  closed  and  it  was  still  between  them,  as  if  it  was 
a  sort  of  a  guardian. 


CONCERNING    A    SYRIAN    BEAUTY         217 

"Couldn't  you  stay  here  and  have  a  little  lunch  with 
me  ?  We'll  have  it  right  away  and  you'll  be  away  in  an 
hour.    Where's  your  brother  ?'' 

"Oh,  he  always  waits  somewhere — outside,  maybe." 

"In  the  other  room?'' 

"Oh,  no;  sometimes  in  the  hall  and  sometimes  in  the 
street;  sometimes  he  goes  away  and  comes  back  again." 

"Well,  this  time  he  can  wait  a  little  longer.  Yama," 
calling  to  the  Jap,  "get  some  lunch  and  hurry  up." 

He  picked  up  the  barrier  of  a  dress  suit  case  and  put 
it  one  side,  then  he  walked  over  to  her  and  putting  his 
arm  around  her  waist,  pulled  her  toward  him  and 
kissed  her  squarely  on  the  mouth. 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  "what  are  you  doing?" 

"Kissing  you.  I've  bought  your  silks  and  now  I'm 
ready  to  invest  in  kisses,  and  I  find,"  he  remarked,  as 
he  kissed  her  again,  "that  your  kisses  are  the  best." 

The  blood  leaped  to  his  brain,  and  he  held  her  so 
tightly  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  would  crush  her. 

"You've  made  me  fall  in  love  with  you,"  he  said,  and 
that  strange  Oriental  perfume  which  came  to  him  from 
her  seemed  to  make  him  mad.  "I  want  you  to  go  away 
with  me ;  will  you  ?  We'll  go  wherever  you  like,  and 
you  will  not  have  to  sell  those  things  any  more.  You 
can  have  all  the  money  to  spend  that  you  want  and 
you  will  be  a  lady." 

Here  was  a  picture  strong  enough  to  turn  the  head 
of  any  woman,  much  less  a  Syrian  straight  from  peas- 
ant stock,  brought  into  the  world  by  accident,  with  a 
face  like  a  Madonna  and  with  a  supple,  pliant  figure 
that  made  men  turn  around  and  look  after  her.  A  girl 
who  had  known  what  privation  and  hardship  was,  and 
who  came  of  a  race  where  women  were  born  to  be  serv- 


218  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

ants  and  made  to  wait  on  men,  the  masters.  Her  beauty 
had  brought  her  nothing  and  now  it  had  suddenly  be- 
come an  asset,  a  stock  in  trade  of  so  great  value  that 
for  the  rest  of  her  life  she  would  know  neither  work, 
nor  care,  nor  trouble.  The  blood  rushing  through  her 
veins  made  her  dizzy  and  her  head  fell  forward  as  her 
eyes  half  closed.  One  brown  arm  crept  up  and  around 
the  neck  of  this  strong,  broad-shouldered  American, 
and  it  kept  her  from  falling  to  the  floor  in  the  excess 
of  her  emotion.  He  felt  her  going,  and  picking  her 
up,  carried  her  to  the  big  armchair  over  in  the  corner, 
where  she  cuddled  up  like  a  rabbit.  She  was  clasping 
and  unclasping  her  fingers  nervously  as  he  stood  look- 
ing at  her  and  her  half-closed  eyes  never  once  met  his. 

''What's  the  matter?"  he  asked,  bending  over.  "Can 
I  do  anything  for  you  ?" 

"No,"  she  whispered ;  "I  was  only  thinking  of  my 
brother." 

"You  don't  want  to  mind  him ;  he's  all  right  wher- 
ever he  is." 

"Not  that,  but  he  might  not  want — he  might  not  like 
you  to — to  love  me,"  and  she  looked  up  at  him. 

"We'll  take  care  of  your  brother  all  right.  Because 
he  is  your  brother  I  will  do  what  I  can  for  him.  Why, 
I  wiH » 

The  voice  of  the  Jap  came  from  the  other  room  just 
as  Jimmy  was  settling  himself  on  the  edge  of  the  big 
chair,  and  had  his  arm  around  the  Syrian's  neck. 

"No,"  \t  said,  "you  wait ;  I  see." 

There  was  an  angry  voice  raised  in  expostulation, 
and  then  before  the  man  could  move  the  brother  came 
bounding  through  the  parted  curtains.  He  paused  for 
just  one  brief  moment  and  then  shrieked: 


CONCERNING    A    SYRIAN    BEAUTY  219 

"Dekka."  He  said  something-  else,  too,  but  it  was  in 
his  own  language  and  only  the  woman  understood,  but 
whatever  it  was  it  made  her  shrink  still  lower  in  her 
seat  and  cover  her  face  with  her  hands.  He  was  on 
Jimmy  like  a  cat,  and  three  times,  even  though  the 
frightened  Jap  was  trying  to  pull  him  off,  he  cut,  and 
each  cut  was  across  the  bridge  of  the  nose,  and  the 
knife  blade  went  as  true  and  sure  to  the  mark-  as 
though  it  was  in  the  hands  of  a  surgeon  on  a  patient 
who  was  under  ether.  Then  with  one  firm  grip  on 
the  wrist  of  the  girl  he  dragged  her  to  the  door  and 
out,  while  the  faithful  Yama  was  using  the  silk  scarfs 
— the  ones  which  had  just  been  bought — trying  to 
staunch  the  flow  of  blood. 

And  that's  the  story. 

And  the  moral  of  it  is  that  every  man  should  stick  to 
his  own  race  and  his  own  blood,  Caucasian  to  Cau- 
casian and  Oriental  to  Oriental,  for  there  are  some 
things  in  this  world  that  don't  mix  any  more  than  oil 
and  water. 


The  first  pair  are  in  the  ring,  the  talk  ceases,  andthe  show  is  on 


THE  REJUVENATION  OF  PATSY 

We'll  just  take  in  a  fight  to-night  for  a  change.  I've 
had  you  Down  the  Line,  over  on  the  East  Side,  in  the 
wine  joints,  behind  the  scenes,  and  in  half  a  dozen  of 
the  so-called  swell  restaurants,  and  all  the  time  there 
have  been  all  kinds  of  punching  matches  going  on  in  a 
dozen  different  halls,  "Clubs,"  they  are  called,  just 
to  sidestep  the  stern  arm  of  the  law,  but  what  differ- 
ence does  it  make  to  a  good  sport  so  long  as  the  men 
are  well  matched  and  they  are  willing  to  mix  it  at  all 
times  ? 

Three  rounds  are  the  limit,  but  there  is  a  lot  doing 
between  bell  and  bell — enough  to  make  even  the  most 
seasoned  ringster  sit  up  and  look  around  as  if  to  say : 

"Now  here  is  some  punching  that  does  a  man's  heart 

good — it  seems  like  old  times,  when ."    You  know 

the  rest  about  the  days  of  long  ago,  and  if  you  listen  to 
him  he  will  hand  you  a  line  of  talk  that  will  put  you 
away  for  the  count. 

You  may  talk  as  you  like  about  all  the  sports  you 
know,  but  after  all  there  is  nothing  like  a  good  go  with 
the  gloves  between  a  pair  who  know  their  business,  and 
there  are  few  men  who  have  any  red  blood  in  their 
veins  who  will  not  go  a  long  ways  to  see  a  slug- 
fest.  Of  course  you'll  always  find  up  against  some  bar 
a  bunch  of  dead  ones  who  will  stretch  their  arms 
and  say:   . 


222  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Not  for  mine ;  I've  seen  all  I  want  to  see,  and  I 
wouldn't  go  around  the  corner  to  get  a  ringside  seat. at 
a  go  between  Roosevelt  and  Kaiser  Wilhelm." 

There's  a  screw  loose  somewhere  in  these  fellows,  or 
else  they  are  drying  of  dry  rot  and  don't  know  it.  Nine 
out  of  ten  of  them  are  bigger  around  the  waist  than 
they  are  around  the  chest,  and  they  invariably  talk 
loud. 

There's  a  little  club  that  I  know  of  where  you  can 
get  a  great  run  for  your  money,  and  we  will  go  there. 

It's  a  case  of  come  early  and  avoid  the  rush,  for 
when  the  gong  rings  for  the  first  bout  there  is  only 
standing  room  left  and  that  is  at  a  premium  because 
the  prices  are  low.  The  manager  doesn't  have  to 
bother  his  head  about  making  matches  because  the 
"talent"  comes  to  him,  and  it  often  happens  that  the 
men  who  furnish  the  preliminaries  are  picked  from 
out  of  the  audience.  These  three-round  affairs  have 
done  a  lot  to  bring  out  a  bunch  of  new  ones ;  any 
young  fellow  who  knows  any  part  of  the  game  can  go 
on  and  get  a  try-out.  He  earns  a  few  dollars  and  if 
he  proves  to  be  good,  he  is  boosted  along  the  line. 

There  is  a  mixed  crowd  on  hand  to-night,  and  you 
can  expect  a  good  card.  In  one  of  the  ringside  seats 
is  the  district  attorney,  a  man  who  loves  a  fair  fight  in 
or  out  of  the  ring.  Further  up  are  a  few  brokers  who 
have  thought  it  worth  while  to  come  down  here  for 
one  night,  anyhow.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  every  class 
in  life  is  represented,  the  man  who  is  worth  a  million 
rubs  elbows  with  the  ten-dollar-a-week  clerk  and  they 
fraternize  as  freely  as  though  they  were  chums. 

"This  Abe  Attell  is  a  clever  boy,  but  they  say  he 
hasn't  the  punch,"  ventures  the  clerk. 


THE    REJUVENATION    OF    PATSY  223 

"Yes,  I  saw  him  recently  and  he  made  that  big 
fellow  look  like  a  cart  horse,"  returns  the  man  of 
money. 

The  fellow  who  paid  one-tenth  of  his  weekly  stipend 
to  join  the  club  for  that  one  night,  which,  by  the  way, 
is  the  system  employed  to  evade  the  law  on  the  sub- 
ject, pulls  out  a  cigarette,  and  asks: 

"Can  I  trouble  you  for  a  light?" 

"No  trouble  at  all,"  comes  the  cheerful  answer,  and 
a  glowing  perfecto,  which  cost  not  less  than  thirty- 
five  cents,  is  handed  over. 

That  miscellaneous  crowd  is  welded  into  one  solid 
mass  by  the  masonry  of  sport,  even  though  individual 
opinions  are  retained,  and  the  opinion  of  a  seasoned 
ring-goer  is  set  hard  and  deep  as  the  rock  of  Gibraltar. 

The  smoke  is  wafted  back  and  forth  like  the  tidal 
currents  of  the  sea  and  the  exertions  of  a  hundred 
devotees  of  nicotine  are  adding  to  it  every  moment. 
An  interminable  buzz  of  voices  fills  the  big  room,  and 
there  is  fight  in  the  very  air. 

"I  tell  you  the  old  man  could  lick  O'Brien  any  day 
he  wanted  to ;  he's  got  the  punch  and  he  can  stand  the 
gaff,  ain't  that  enough?"  This  in  a  strident  voice  from 
the  cheaper  seats,  and  it  was  answered  at  once  by 
an  argument  that  was  apparently  deemed  irrefutable : 

"Why  didn't  he  do  it?" 

Near  the  door  is  a  fight  bug  whom  no  one  ever  heard 
of,  and  who  is  interesting  simply  because  he  is  a  freak. 
He  is  voluble,  emphatic  and  vainglorious. 

"I  kin  beat  Britt  an'  he  knows  it,  an'  dat's  the  reason 
he  won't  give  me  a  chanst.  He'd  be  a  pipe  fer  me,  'cos 
I'd  infight  him,  an'  he  couldn't  stand  my  body  punchin'. 
Dere's  where  I'm  great — on  dose  body  blows.    I  chal- 


224  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

lenged  him  three  times  an'  he  never  paid  no  attention 
to  me.  He's  afraid  uv  me,  dat's  what  he  is.  I  kin 
beat  'em  all  if  dey'll  only  cum  to  me." 

"You  couldn't  beat  a  carpet,"  shouts  a  wit,  and  the 
bug  is  temporarily  squelched. 

The  noise  of  the  voices  is  suddenly  emphasized — the 
first  pair  are  coming  and  the  show  is  on.  Into  the  ring 
they  climb  from  opposite  corners,  principals  and  sec- 
onds, and  then,  more  leisurely,  as  befits  the  dignity 
of  his  exalted  position,  comes  the  announcer.  They 
all  have  the  same  speech,  which  has  been  doing  duty 
for  generations,  and  this  one  is  no  different  from  the 
rest: 

"A  little  order,  please,  gentlemen,  and  stop  smoking 
while  the  bouts  are  on."  But  no  one  ever  pays  any 
attention  to  that  last.  "These  two  boys,"  he  calls  them 
by  name,  "both  members  of  this  club,"  another  neat 
little  scheme  to  evade  the  law,  "will  box  three  rounds 
for  scientific  points  only.  Keep  a  little  order,  please, 
because  if  you  make  a  noise  the  bouts  will  be  stopped. 
The  men  will  box  straight  Marquis  of  Queensberry 
rules.     All   ready,  boys." 

He  waves  his  hands  toward  the  corners,  and  then 
backs  through  the  ropes  conscious  of  a  duty  well  per- 
formed. The  gloves,  a  bit  too  big  for  the  majority  of 
the  onlookers,  have  in  the  meantime  been  adjusted, 
the  referee  calls  "Time,"  they  step  to  the  center,  shake 
hands  and  get  down  to  work.  Sparring  doesn't  go  in 
bouts  of  such  short  duration,  so  it's  a  case  of  mix  it 
from  the  start.  Here  is  a  sturdy  little  Italian  against 
a  good,  fast  and  clever  Irish  lad.  The  good-natured 
grin  of  the  former  is  never  relaxed  for  a  moment  as 
he  wades  in,  taking  a  punch  to  give  one.    This  fellow 


THE    REJUVENATION    OF    PATSY  225 

is  fighting  his  way  out  of  debt,  and  he's  well  on  the 
road  to  financial  freedom  now.  Last  year  he  figured 
in  more  than  one  star  fight  and  he  looked  like  a  money- 
maker. He  took  care  of  his  end  of  the  purse  every 
time,  but  on  one  of  his  Southern  trips  he  fell  in  with 
a  girl  that  he  grew  to  think  pretty  well  of,  and  it  wasn't 
long  before  she  became  the  custodian  of  his  coin. 
When  the  bank  roll  was  big  enough  to  suit  her,  she 
blew  with  another  boy  and  left  this  one  broke.  That's 
the  reason  he's  putting  the  gloves  on  and  going  three 
hard  rounds  for  a  ten  spot  now.  The  Irish  boy  is 
punching  him  at  will  and  counting  up  the  points  every 
time  they  come  together,  but  there  is  steam  behind 
those  blows  of  the  Italian,  and  it  isn't  hard  to  predict 
the  result  if  they  were  to  go  ten  rounds  instead  of 
three.  At  the  finish  they  are  furiously  mixing  it  in  a 
corner,  and  the  gong  rings  its  notification  more  than 
once  before  they  break  away,  shake  hands,  the  Italian 
still  smiling,  and  climb  out  to  make  way  for  the  next 
pair. 

The  boys  are  put  on  as  fast  as  they  can  bring  them 
in  the  ring,  and  the  bouts  are  all  good  ones.  Finally 
there  is  only  one  more  to  come,  and  it  is  that  for  which 
the  crowd  has  been  waiting. 

Before  the  announcer  can  do  his  next  stunt  half  a 
hundred  hands — gloved  and  ungloved — are  coming  to- 
gether in  applause.  The  cue  came  when  a  trim  built, 
muscular  little  fellow,  whose  condition  is  not  too  good, 
slips  through  the  ropes.  He  smiles  cordially  at  the 
crowd  and  nods  his  head  jerkily  in  response  to  the 
reception. 

"I  take  pleasure  in  introducing  Patsy  Haley,"  begins 
the  announcer,  but  he  is  stopped  by  the  applause  which 


226  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

breaks  out  again,  and  he  fails  to  get  in  that  saving- 
clause  about  the  "club  member"  business.  As  if  Patsy 
needed  any  introduction  to  that  crowd  of  sports,  young 
or  old,  who  have  seen  him  fight  when  he  was  at  his 
best.  How  can  they  ever  forget  the  wonderful  clever- 
ness he  used  to  show?  Don't  you  remember  when 
he  fought  Terry  "McGovern  before  the  Lenox  Athletic 
Club  in  1899?  It  was  all  Patsy  up  to  the  eighteenth 
round,  and  even  the  wonderful  Terry  couldn't  find  him 
until  then,  when  he  landed  the  crashing  punch  that 
gave  him  the  big  end  of  the  purse.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  they  applaud  him?  He's  too  wise  for  the  best 
of  them  for  three  rounds  even  to-day,  for  he  can  stall 
and  get  away  with  as  little  effort  as  a  kid  makes  when 
he  goes  up  against  a  nursing  bottle.  He  hits  when 
and  where  he  likes  and  how  he  likes,  but  he  has  no 
punch,  as  the  youngster  who  is  up  against  him  soon 
finds  out,  and  so  he  wades  in  to  do  a  little  execution 
with  a  wild,  swinging  right,  but  the  glove  never  gets 
within  three  inches  of  Patsy's  smiling  face.  It  is  jab, 
jab,  jab  with  the  old-timer,  and  the  crowd  roars  its 
approval,  while  the  Kid's  seconds  keep  calling  to  him 
in  stage  whispers  which  can  be  heard  all  over  the 
house,  to — 

"Mix  it  there,  Kid,  one  punch  will  do  him." 
Their  advice  is  good,  but  the  bewildered,  dazed  kid, 
not  hurt  a  bit,  but  simply  made  dizzy  by  those  light- 
ning-like feints,  followed  by  taps  that  push  his  head 
back  and  throw  him  off  his  balance,  can't  make  good. 
He  rushes,  swinging  as  he  comes  in,  but  he  finds  him- 
self breasting  the  ropes,  and  he  turns  only  to  get  a 
straight  left  square  on  the  point  of  the  nose. 


THE    REJUVENATION    OF    PATSY  227 

It's  very  discouraging  work  for  a  novice.  You  see, 
he's  evidently  been  figuring  on  going  into  the  ring  and 
putting  this  old-timer  away  and  then  getting  his  name 
and  picture  in  the  sporting  papers.  It's  a  hun- 
dred to  one  that  he's  been  in  training,  and  he's  had  it 
all  framed  up  with  his  trainer  just  how  he  was  going 
to  do  the  trick.  It  seemed  very  easy  in  that  stable,  or 
loft,  or  wherever  it  was  that  he  had  his  punching  bag 
and  skipping  rope,  and  he  was  told  there  was  no  harm 
in  a  dozen  of  Patsy's  punches  rolled  into  one.  He 
knows  that  now,  but  that  merciless,  pitiless  jab  is 
enough  to  worry  anyone,  and  besides,  his  arms  are  be- 
ginning to  ache  with  the  effort  of  swinging  and  hitting 
nothing. 

"Close  in,  Kid ;  close  in." 

They  are  calling  to  him  again  and  he  makes  another 
rush.  He  is  going  to  try  to  knock  the  smile  off  that 
face  this  time.  He  puts  all  his  effort  in  the  blow  and 
lets  go.  He  misses,  and  the  force  of  it  brings  him  to 
his  knees  as  the  bell  rings  for  the  end  of  the  first  round. 

He  takes  his  seat  and  he  knows  that  those  yells  are 
not  for  him. 

His  seconds  and  counsellors  are  there  as  quickly  as 
he  is,  and  while  he  is  being  fanned,  and  rubbed  and 
sprayed,  he  is  also  being  advised  how  to  do  it  next 
time.  Over  in  the  other  corner  Patsy  is  talking  laugh- 
ingly with  some  ringside  friends. 

"You're  as  fast  as  ever,  son,"  says  one.  "How  are 
you  feeling?" 

That  is  always  the  proper  thing  to  ask  a  man  who  is 
in  the  ring — that  is,  when  you've  nothing  else  to  say. 
I'll  bet  no  man  ever  went  in  the  ring  who  wasn't  asked 
that  question  at  least  a  dozen  times.     It  seems  to  be 


228  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

sort  of  a  stock  query,  just  as  every  rube  considers  it  his 
bounden  duty  to  ask  an  actor  who  plays  his  town: 

"Where  do  you  go  from  here?"  As  if  it  made  any 
difference  to  him  where  the  actor  went,  but  he  feels  he 
has  to  say  something,  so  he  says  that. 

The  gong  rings,  and  they're  at  it  again.  The  Kid 
has  a  new  set  of  tactics  now,  and  he  proceeds  to  put 
them  into  execution,  so  as  soon  as  he  leaves  his  chair 
he  starts  on  a  run  for  his  opponent.  He's  going  after 
him  this  time,  sure  enough.  Out  goes  the  left  and 
around  goes  the  right.  The  right  gets  Patsy  just  be- 
hind the  ear  and  shakes  him  up  a  bit. 

"Go  after  him ;  you've  got  him,"  call  out  the  sec- 
onds. He  thinks  so,  too,  and  he  draws  back  when  the 
versatile  Patsy  slips  into  a  clinch. 

"Break  there;  break  now,"  calls  the  referee.  The 
Kid  is  pushed  away  and  his  antagonist  dances  back 
out  of  reach,  not  showing  the  slightest  evidence  of  dis- 
tress. Truly  this  is  no  cinch.  Again  and  again  an  at- 
tempt is  made  to  land  that  finishing  punch,  but  each 
time  it  fails  to  connect,  and  when  it  does  land  it  doesn't 
seem  to  land  in  the  right  place.  In  a  mixup  his  chance 
comes  again,  and  he  rips  up  a  right  to  the  stomach  so 
hard  that  the  old-timer  grunts.  That  gives  him  a  little 
courage  and  after  the  break  he  rushes  again,  but  the 
jaw  that  he  aimed  for  is  not  there.  His  nose  is  begin- 
ning to  get  a  bit  sore  when  the  bell  rings  with  rather  a 
welcome  sound. 

Lacking  the  punch  this  "vet"  seems  to  be  all  right 
for  three  rounds.  He's  a  bit  winded,  to  be  sure,  but 
who  wouldn't  be  under  the  circumstances?  It's  good, 
anyhow,  to  see  him  with  the  mitts  on  once  more.     It 


THE    REJUVENATION    OF    PATSY  229 

makes  a  fellow  think  of  old  times.    I  am  just  about  to 
become  reminiscent  when  the  gong  rings  again. 

''Shake  hands  and  windup,"  says  the  referee. 

The  padded  fists  meet  for  an  instant,  the  Kid  steps 
back  one  pace  and  then  lunges  forward.  He  comes  in 
with  a  jab,  and  he  catches  Haley  squarely  on  the  mouth 
with  his  left.  Aha,  he  has  landed.  He  pulls  his  right 
back  to  follow  it  up,  but  in  that  fraction  of  a  second 
his  chance  has  gone,  for  he's  up  against  a  ring  general. 
Two  more  futile  rushes  and  then  he  tried  again.  This 
time  he  misses  with  the  left,  but  starting  his  right  with- 
out pulling  back,  he  catches  his  man  on  the  jaw  just  in 
front  of  the  ear.  He  feels  the  blow  land  and  then  he 
starts  in  with  rights  and  lefts,  but  shifty  Patsy  steps 
inside  of  them  and  they  go  around  his  neck.  In  a 
frenzy  the  Kid  pushes  him  away,  but  for  his  trouble  he 
gets  another  jab  on  that  sore  nose  that  brings  the  mois- 
ture to  his  eyes. 

"Make  him  fight,  Kid,"  bawls  the  trainer;  "go  after 
him." 

He  might  as  well  go  after  a  dancing  sunbeam  as  to 
go  after  the  elusive,  shifty,  smiling  Patsy,  who  is 
stalling  and  jabbing  the  third  round  away,  and  when 
the  final  gong  rings  he  is  still  going  after  him  with 
nothing  doing.  There  is  bitterness  in  his  heart,  but  it 
doesn't  last,  for  when  they  shake  hands,  the  little  fellow 
who  made  many  a  good  one  in  his  day  look  like 
a  draught  horse,  remarks : 

"You're  all  right,  Kid,  and  you'll  beat  a  lot  of  them 
some  day." 


The  glitter  of  a  circus  became  too  much  for  them  to  resist 


A  CASE  OF  KNOCKOUT  DROPS 

In  a  back  room  of  a  place  just  off  Broadway  sat  a 
good-looking  brunette — you  will  notice  all  these  girls 
of  mine  are  good  looking — and  three  young  fellows  of 
the  kind  known  to  the  police  as  "cadets."  There  was 
nothing  unusual  about  this  room  except,  that  it  was 
better  furnished  than  you  would  have  expected,  and  it 
had  expensive  oil  paintings  on  the  walls.  Besides,  it 
was  carpeted.  All  this  would  mean  higher-priced 
drinks  if  not  a  better  service. 

It  was  a  drinking  place  where  women  might  come 
with  their  escorts  and  feel  reasonably  safe  from  intru- 
sion, and  midnight  was  its  busiest  hour.  Just  now  was 
the  calm  which  precedes  the  storm,  and  there  were 
not  enough  guests  to  induce  the  waiters  to  cease  their 
gossiping  and  loafing  in  the  big  room  outside. 

The  woman  who  sat  there  at  the  little  round  table 
was  a  common  type ;  you  can  see  her  like  wherever 
you  go,  especially  at  night.  When  the  sun  has  gone 
down  and  the  lights  are  bright,  she  flutters  out  of 
some  cave-like  dwelling  like  a  new  kind  of  butterfly, 
with  the  instincts  of  the  moth,  in  that  she  flutters  only 
at  night,  and  in  her  veins  runs  the  blood  of  a  hunter, 
for  she  is  ever  on  the  trail. 

This  one  is  pretty  in  a  negative  sort  of  way.  Her 
features  are  regular,  her  teeth  are  white  and  strong, 
and  her  eyes  are  bright  and  have  expression,  but  if  you 


232  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

will  look  close  you  will  notice  a  hard  glance  there. 
It  is  neither  merciful  nor  kind. 

She  has  emotions,  but  they  are  hardly  worth  consid- 
ering, for  they  are  of  the  baser  sort. 

She  has  nerve,  daring,  courage  and  calmness,  and 
because  her  life  has  been  a  constant  warfare  she  fears 
nothing.  She  may  dread  the  touch  of  a  policeman's 
hand  and  the  command  to  "Come  on,"  but  she  doesn't 
fear  it.  There  is  a  difference,  you  know,  between  the 
words  of  fear  and  dread. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  she  was  born  to  be  what  she  is. 

Her  first  adventure  in  life  was  when  she  became  in- 
fatuated with  the  glitter  of  the  arena,  and  with  a  girl 
companion  of  her  own  age  took  up  with  a  couple  of 
clowns  attached  to  a  circus.  But  she  soon  found  the 
difference  between  the  dressing  tents  and  reserved 
seats  and  headed  for  the  nearest  big  city. 

"There  ain't  a  case  note  among  the  four  of  us,"  re- 
marks one  of  the  men.  "I  think  we're  a  bunch  of 
shines.  The  first  thing  you  know  we'll  have  to  go  out 
and  look  for  jobs." 

The  girl  was  drumming  idly  on  the  table  with  her 
fingers. 

"You're  the  strongest  one  of  the  lot,  what's  the  mat- 
ter with  you  making  a  start?"  said  another  to  the  one 
who  had  just  spoken. 

"I'd  look  nice  getting  up  with  the  milk  wagons, 
wouldn't  I?" 

The  girl  stopped  her  drumming  and  glanced  up. 

"You  can  leave  me  out  of  all  this  argument,"  she  re- 
marked, "for  I  don't  figure.  No  more  Broadway  for 
mine  after  ten  o'clock  to-night,  and  it's  a  case  of  good- 
by  for  you,  too,  Jack." 


A    CASE    OF    KNOCKOUT    DROPS  233 

"I  suppose  that's  another  one  of  your  funny  jokes," 
said  Jack,  "but  I  don't  like  those  kind  of  stories,  so 
you  can  cut  it  out." 

"No  funny  story  about  it  at  all,"  she  went  on,  in  that 
even,  monotonous  way  which  is  particularly  aggravat- 
ing. "I'm  tired  of  this  way  of  living,  and  I'm  tired  of 
being  a  coaling  station,  and  I  know  when  I  got 
enough." 

"Where  are  you  going?" 

She  had  resumed  her  drumming  and  paid  no  atten- 
tion. 

"Who  are  you  going  with  ?" 

"That's  none  of  your  damned  business." 

He  leaned  forward  and  taking  her  by  the  wrist  gave 
her  a  vicious  pull  toward  him. 

"I  suppose  it's  that  guy  from  the  country?" 

"Well,  what  if  it  is  ?"  she  said  defiantly,  and  then,  as 
if  she  had  suddenly  made  up  her  mind,  she  went  on, 
talking  rapidly,  as  a  woman  will  do  when  she  is  under 
a  nervous  strain : 

"He's  going  to  do  what  you  never  thought  of  doing 
— he's  going  to  marry  me  and  make  me  decent — if  it 
ain't  too  late.  He's  going  to  meet  me  here  at  ten 
o'clock  and  we're  going  to  jump  to  the  Coast.  He's 
got  the  coin,  for  he's  sold  out  his  farm.  He's  going  to 
take  me  out  there,  and  he  says  we  are  going  to  begin 
all  over  again ;  that  I'll  have  a  good  chance,  for  nobody 
will  know  where  I  came  from.  What  do  I  get  here? 
Nothing.  If  I'm  sick  I  can  go  to  the  hospital  or  die  in 
my  room  like  a  rat  in  a  garret.  I  haven't  a  friend  in 
the  world  who  would  do  anything  for  me  on  the  level 
and  for  pure  friendship's  sake.  If  I  was  to  grow  old 
to-morrow,  I  couldn't  get  enough  to  buy  a  cup   of 


234  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

coffee,  and  of  all  the  good  fellows  I  know  there  is  only 
one  who  wpuld  walk  across  the  street  to  do  anything 
for  me  just  because  he  liked  me.  You're  broke  now, 
and  you  are  wondering  how  you  are  going  to  get  mon- 
ey, but  you  know  down  in  your  heart  that  you're  ex- 
pecting me  to  get  it  for  you.  You've  got  a  long  wait, 
for  I'll  not  get  it.     I'm  through,  and  that  settles  it/' 

"So  you've  been  meeting  this  fellow  on  the  quiet, 
have  you?"  asked  the  one  who  was  called  Jack. 

"No,  I  haven't  seen  him  for  five  years." 

"Don't  think  you  can  kid  me;  how  have  you  been 
framing  things  up  then  if  you  haven't  been  meeting 
him?" 

She  gazed  at  him  steadily  for  a  moment  as  if  she 
were  shaping  her  course,  and  then  she  said: 

"Well,  I'll  just  put  you  right  for  once.  I  suppose 
you've  heard  of  the  mail.  Well,  I've  been  getting  let- 
ters from  him,  and  here,"  pulling  one  from  a  little 
handbag  she  carried,  "is  the  last  one." 

With  a  quick,  deft  movement  he  snatched  it  from 
her  hand  and  opened  it.  At  the  first  line  he  laughed 
loudly. 

"He's  nutty,  all  right — he  must  have  it  bad.  Listen 
to  him :" 

He  began  to  read. 

My  Dear  Little  Girl: — I  have  just  received  your 
letter,  and  the  world  looks  different  to  me  already.  I 
don't  want  you  to  tell  me  any  more  about  yourself,  for 
I  don't  want  to  know  any  more.  We  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  past  now,  it  is  only  the  future  which  con- 
cerns us  and  that  will  be  what  we  make  it.  I  have  sold 
the  old  farm,  so  we  have  $12,000  to  start  with,  and  I 
shall  be  in  New  York  at  the  place  you  suggest  and  on 


A    CASE    OF    KNOCKOUT    DROPS  235 

time  to  the  minute,  so  you  can  look  for  me.  Don't 
bother  about  baggage  or  any  of  your  personal  belong- 
ings, for  all  we  will  want  is  a  minister.  After  that 
we  can  talk  things  over.  I  hate  to  leave  the  old  place, 
but  it  makes  no  difference  now  that  I'm  going  to  have 
you. 

Yours  always,  Joe. 

He  handed  the  letter  back  to  her. 

"Little  girl,  you're  all  right  after  all,  ain't  she,  fel- 
lows? Landed  a  guy  with  $12,000  in  cold  coin,  and 
he'll  have  the  goods  on  him,  too,  I  suppose.  We  won't 
do  a  thing  but  take  that  bank  roll  away  and  send  him 
back  to  the  farm  again." 

Then  he  turned  to  the  girl. 

"How's  the  best  way  to  do  it?  Give  him  the  peter? 
Maybe  it  will  be  best  to  take  him  up  to  the  room  and 
wait  till  he  gets  asleep.  It's  your  job,  Maude,  so  we'll 
do  as  you  say.  It's  only  nine  o'clock,  and  we've  got 
an  hour  yet  to  frame  it  up." 

She  was  looking  at  him  with  horror  in  her  face. 

"You're  wrong,"  she  cried,  "he's  not  to  be  trimmed. 
He's  going  to  marry  me  and  we  are  going  away. 
There's  no  job  about  this,  and  I  want  you  to  leave  him 
alone." 

"We'll  leave  him  alone  all  right,  and  when  you  see 
the  new  front  on  me  to-morrow  you'll  think  I  own 
Broadway.  Twelve  thousand  dollars,  why,  the  four 
of  us  can  go  to  Europe  on  that." 

Then  she  stood  up. 

"If  you  touch  him  or  try  to  turn  him  off  I'll  call  in  a 
cop  and  have  you  all  pinched,"  and  she  swept  her  hand 
at  them  with  an  inclusive  movement. 


236  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Don't  go  off  your  nut  like  that,  everything  will  be 
all  right,"  said  Jack.  "You'll  get  your  bit,  no  matter 
what  happens,  but  you're  talking  like  a  crazy  woman. 
You  never  used  to  be  like  this.  You've  been  in  tougher 
jobs  before.  You  just  think  you're  stuck  on  this  Joe 
because  he  writes  you  a  nice  letter,  but  there's  nothing 
to  it.  You  stick  to  me  and  I'll  stick  to  you,  and  this 
bundle  will  put  us  on  Easy  Street.  Why  don't  you  be 
nice?" 

She  had  partly  turned  her  back  on  them  and  was 
looking  at  one  of  the  pictures  on  the  wall. 

It  is  when  a  woman  is  silent  that  she  is  most  danger- 
ous, because  then  she  is  thinking.  Give  a  woman  time 
to  think  and  you  are  simply  supplying  her  with  ammu- 
nition. But  the  stupid  man  who  had  dominated  by 
brute  force  knew  nothing  of  this.  To  him  her  silence 
meant  acquiescence,  and  he  scented  an  easy  victory. 

With  a  quick,  alert  nod  of  his  head  he  motioned  the 
other  two  from  the  room,  and  they  left  silently  and  like 
automatons,  their  feet  on  the  carpet  giving  forth  no 
sound,  but  her  senses  were  keen  and  she  knew  when 
they  had  gone.  As  the  door  closed  behind  them  she 
turned  around  with  a  smile  on  her  face. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "that  you  will  be  a  fool  as  long 
as  you  live.  Here  I  find  a  man  with  a  big  roll,  and  ar- 
range to  have  him  bring  it  to  us  on  a  gold  plate  and 
you  turn  around,  make  me  give  my  hand  away,  and 
declare  those  two  dead  ones  in  on  the  play.  You'll 
never  have  sense  if  you  live  to  be  a  hundred  years  old." 

He  looked  at  her  admiringly. 

"You're  better  than  I  thought,"  he  said  at  last. 
"We'll  jump  to  Europe  on  this.  Wait  'till  I  get  a  paper 
and  see  if  there  is  a  ship  sailing  to-morrow  morning. 


A    CASE    OF    KNOCKOUT    DROPS  237 

We'll  make  a  quick  getaway  from  the  whole  crowd." 

He  almost  ran  through  the  door  in  his  eagerness. 

He  was  back  in  a  few  moments  with  a  newspaper  in 
his  hand.  Eagerly  he  scanned  the  columns  devoted  to 
shipping  news. 

"Good,"  he  ejaculated,  "there's  one  goes  to  France. 
Sails  at  nine  o'clock.  We'll  head  for  Paris — there's  the 
place  to  buy  your  clothes ;  swell,  too,  and  cheap ;  and 
we  won't  take  anything  with  us,  we'll  buy  it  all  there." 

"Get  down  to  cases,"  she  said  sharply.  "How  are 
you  going  to  do  this  ?" 

"I've  got  the  peter  drops,"  he  said,  putting  his  hand 
to  his  pocket.  "That'll  be  the  easiest  way.  We'll  just 
dope  him  a  bit,  grab  the  money,  get  out  quick,  and  lay 
low  somewhere  until  to-morrow." 

"You  know  best,"  she  said,  but  her  voice  had  a 
strained  tone  in  it  that  escaped  him.  "But  whatever 
you  do,  whenever  I  give  you  any  kind  of  a  tip  take  it 
quick,  see." 

Even  as  she  spoke  the  door  was  pushed  open  and  a 
well-built,  brown-faced  young  fellow  strode  in,  looked 
around,  paused  irresolutely,  and  then  went  toward  her 
with  a  smile  on  his  face  and  his  hand  outstretched. 

"You  see,  I'm  on  time,  Maude,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  Joe,  and  I've  been  waiting  for  you  a  long 
while.  This  is  a  friend  of  mine  who  has  been  very 
good  to  me,  and  I  want  you  to  know  him.  His  name 
is  Jack.  That's  been  enough  for  me  and  I  guess  it  will 
be  enough  for  you." 

"Let's  have  one  drink,  and  then  I'll  have  to  be  get- 
ting along,"  said  Jack,  briskly. 

The  other  didn't  drink,  but  the  coaxing  of  the  girl 
made  him  almost  forget  his  name,  and  three  glasses  of 


238  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

whiskey  were  ordered  from  the  man  who  came  at  the 
summons  of  the  bell. 

They  were  about  to  drink  when  she  suddenly  ex- 
claimed : 

"Oh,  Joe,  here's  a  picture  that  always  makes  me 
think  of  the  old  days ;  see,  that  one  with  the  lake,"  and 
as  Joe  looked  the  other  man  deftly  poured  the  dose  into 
the  waiting  glass.  She  saw  it  done  and  nodded  her  ap- 
proval, and  then,  while  they  were  still  talking  about 
the  picture,  she  asked  Jack  to  get  her  a  pencil  so  she 
could  write  a  note.  In  little  affairs  of  this  kind  strict 
obedience  to  an  order  is  absolutely  necessary,  so  he  did 
not  question  her,  but  went  at  once. 

When  he  returned  they  were  sitting  at  the  table 
again. 

"Niow  for  our  last  drink  together,"  she  remarked 
gayly,  "and  here's  that  we  may  all  be  happy,"  and  she 
looked  at  Jack. 

And  so  they  drank,  and  then  Jack  set  himself  to 
watching  furtively  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  this 
man  with  the  money.  He  fell  to  wondering  just  where 
it  was,  and  turned  cold  at  the  thought  that  it  might 
have  been  left  at  some  place  for  safe  keeping.  Once 
his  eyes  closed  and  he  opened  them  with  an  effort.  The 
girl  said  something,  and  it  took  him  some  little  time 
before  his  brain  could  figure  out  what  he  ought  to  say 
in  reply,  and  longer  still  for  his  lips  to  form  the  words. 
She  was  talking  rapidly,  but  her  voice  seemed  a  great 
distance  away. 

"Come  on,  Joe,"  he  heard  that  all  right.  "Come  on, 
it's  time  we  were  going.     We  must  hurry." 

It  didn't  seem  at  all  strange  to  him  that  they  should 
want  to  hurry;  in  fact,  it  seemed  quite  natural. 


A    CASE    OF    KNOCKOUT    DROPS  239 

"If  he's  a  friend  of  yours  we  ought  not  to  leave  him 
here  like  that."  That  was  the  man's  voice,  he  could 
swear  to  that. 

"Come  on,"  she  said  again,  and  for  hours  afterward 
it  was  as  if  the  world  was  filled  with  women  shouting 
"come  on,  come  on,"  to  tall,  athletic  young  fellows  with 
blue  eyes  and  brown  faces,  and  the  incessant  murmur 
of  it  all  made  his  head  ache. 

Then  he  was  being  violently  handled  by  someone 
who  appeared  to  be  intent  upon  annoying  him  and 
causing  his  head  to  hurt  still  worse. 

He  was  slapped  and  walked,  and  a  strange,  queer 
liquid  was  being  forced  between  his  teeth. 

Then  he  opened  his  eyes. 

"You're  all  right  now,  I  guess,"  said  a  man's  un- 
familiar voice. 

"What's  the  matter  ?"  he  asked  thickly. 

"Nothing  much,  only  you've  been  drugged  and  your 
heart  came  near  quitting.  Lie  down  now  and  rest  up 
a  bit  and  you'll  be  all  right  after  a  while." 

"Where  the  devil  am  I  ?"  he  asked,  after  the  manner 
of  the  abducted  girl  in  the  society  drama. 

"You're  in  the  hospital — you  ought  to  be  glad  you're 
alive." 


Wild  revelry  of  the  masked  ball  and  the  perfect  ladies  with  the  hot  sports 


DISCOVERING  A  PRIMA  DONNA 

The  great  see-saw  of  life  is  as  interesting  as  a  poker 
game  if  you  only  have  a  mind  to  watch  it,  but,  like  the 
poker  game,  it  must  be  thoroughly  understood  and 
closely  studied  to  appreciate  the  fine  points.  In  the 
beginning  we  all  take  cards,  we  all  draw  to  fill;  the 
winning  hands  slip  easily  through  life,  while  the  four 
flushes  try  to  blufl  it  out,  and  there's  many  a  four 
flush  in  New  York  to-day  who  is  getting  away  with  it. 

Many  a  girl  who  wears  a  sailor  hat  never  saw  a 
yacht,  and  many  a  man  who  wears  a  diamond  pin 
couldn't  pay  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar  if  it  came  to  a 
show  down. 

But  that  isn't  the  story  by  any  means. 

I  call  this  little  recital  of  facts  the  beginning  and  the 
end ;  you'll  see  why  later  as  the  plot  thickens. 

New  York  with  the  lid  on  is  New  York  just  trie 
same,  no  matter  what  the  police  say.  It's  all  there, 
only  it  is  covered  up  a  bit. 

The  shades  are  pulled  closer,  but  the  lights  and 
everything  else  are  behind  them. 

The  wild  revelry  of  the  masked  ball  is  toned  down 
not  one  jot,  and  the  perfect  ladies  in  tights  who  help 
to  make  life  endurable  for  the  sports  on  these  occa- 
sions do  not  add,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  even  so  much 
as  one  piece  of  jewelry  to  their  scant  costumes. 

You  may  never  have  seen  the  kind  of  room  I'm 
going  to  introduce  to  you,  but  if  you  haven't  it's  your 


242  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

fault,  for  they  are  common  enough,  not  only  in  New 
York,  but  in  many  other  cities. 

There's  space  enough  for  dancing  here,  and  the 
floor  is  polished  like  glass.  Around  the  sides  are  round 
tables  for  the  drinkers,  and  they  are  the  most  impor- 
tant feature,  for  if  you  don't  drink,  or  at  least  order 
drinks,  you  had  better  skiddoo,  for  you'll  not  have  a 
very  pleasant  time. 

At  one  end  of  the  room  is  an  orchestra,  consisting 
of  a  piano  and  a  violin.  I  don't  need  to  call  your  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  the  fellow  who  is  playing  the 
violin  knows  his  business.  You  can  tell  that  by  the 
way  he  handles  his  instrument.  He  never  learned 
that  touch  out  of  a  book,  nor  did  he  acquire  that  tech- 
nique at  the  rate  of  ten  lessons  for  a  dollar,  cash  in  ad- 
vance. A  few  years  before  he  was  playing  nocturnes 
and  sonatas  before  fashionable  audiences  for  big 
money,  but  he  hit  the  slide  and  now  he's  at  the  bottom 
— a  dollar  a  night  and  drinks  for  ragtime. 

The  hands  on  the  clock  which  mark  the  flight  of 
time  show  exactly  midnight,  and  business  is  at  high 
tide.  It's  a  case  of  get  the  money  between  now  and 
three  o'clock  and  then  slow  down,  and  every  aggres- 
sive waiter  in  the  place  is  hustling  as  if  his  life  de- 
pended on  it. 

A  girl  is  standing  at  the  piano  as  the  orchestra 
strikes  the  introduction  of  a  song.  Not  a  bad-looking 
girl  if  you  observe  her  closely.  Rather  a  strong  face, 
good,  honest  blue  eyes,  set  well  apart,  and  a  chin  in 
which  there  is  some  hint  of  determination  and  self- 
reliance.  She  has  a  trim  little  figure,  not  voluptuous, 
but  good  to  look  at — the  kind  of  a  figure  that  seems  to 


DISCOVERING    A    PRIMA    DONNA  243 

belong  in  an  evening  gown,  and  which  men  turn 
around  to  look  at. 

The  only  thing  that  stamps  her  as  an  habitue  of  the 
place  is  her  dress.  Its  gaudiness  was  made  for  the 
night.  It  is  a  street  beacon  which  proclaims  at  every 
step,  "follow  me."  The  picture  hat,  with  the  sweeping 
red  feather,  heightens  the  effect.  It  is  all  very  stagey, 
and  would  look  as  garish  as  spangles  in  the  honest 
light  of  day. 

But  this  is  not  a  daylight  scene,  so  we'll  let  that 
pass. 

"Ha,  there,  you  noisy  guys,  cut  out  that  chinnin' ; 
Little  Melba's  goin'  ter  sing.     Cheese  it." 

It  is  the  strident  voice  of  a  waiter  that  admonishes 
a  noisy  party  at  one  of  the  tables,  and  it  has  an  imme- 
diate effect. 

It's  just  as  well,  you  know,  to  pay  a  little  attention 
to  the  advice  of  a  waiter  in  a  place  like  this. 

And  so  she  sings  her  song. 

It  is  a  refrain  with  a  swing  to  it,  and  it  tells  the  story 
of  a  man  and  a  woman  in  a  rather  affecting  way,  and 
for  her  loyalty  to  him,  the  man  calls  the  woman  his 
pal. 

But  the  words  don't  count  here ;  it's  the  voice,  and 
you'll  see  why  they  call  her  Little  Melba.  Every  note 
is  true  and  clear,  and  there  is  never  a  falter  at  the  high 
ones. 

It  doesn't  need  a  waiter  to  command  order  now ;  the 
first  line  of  that  song,  as  sung  by  her,  did  more  than 
all  the  waiters  in  the  world  could  do. 

It  commanded  the  respectful  attention  of  that  mixed 
mob. 


244  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

At  the  finish  of  the  first  chorus,  a  sailor  in  the  ex- 
uberance of  his  admiration,  and  feeling  that  he  must 
give  voice  to  his  sentiments  in  some  tangible  manner, 
roared  out : 

"You're  all  right,  old  pal ;  you're  all  right." 

She  smiled  at  the  compliment,  nodded  at  him  in  a 
friendly  way,  and  then  she  continued. 

Every  night  she  sang  there — ten  songs — and  she  was 
paid  exactly  the  same  as  the  waiters — one  dollar,  but 
she  received  in  addition  certain  privileges,  the  details 
of  which  need  not  be  entered  into  here,  because  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  story. 

One  of  the  waiters — the  one  who  had  called  out  for 
order — was  her  man.  She  called  him  another  name, 
and  he  was  known  to  the  world  by  still  another.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  although  he  didn't  know  it,  he  belonged 
to  her — although  he  thought  she  belonged  to  him — for 
the  clothes  that  he  wore  were  bought  with  her  money, 
the  food  that  he  ate  she  paid  for,  and  it  was  she  who 
rented  the  place  which  he  called  home.  She  was  the 
bread  winner,  she  bore  the  burden  of  life,  and  she 
took  the  blows.  The  police  kept  their  eyes  on  her,  but 
paid  no  attention  to  the  man — the  real  criminal. 

As  the  last  notes  of  her  song  forced  their  way 
through  the  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke,  three  men  in 
evening  dress  came  in.  They  were  of  the  usual  kind 
of  visitors  from  which  the  waiters  always  expect  a 
wine  order.  They  wore  evening  clothes  like  men  who 
had  been  used  to  them  all  their  lives,  and  it  didn't  need 
the  sharp  eyes  of  a  waiter  in  a  tough  resort  like  this  to 
detect  that  air  of  prosperity  which  invariably  forms  an 
invisible  halo  about  money. 

The  square-jawed,  square-shouldered  young  fellow 


DISCOVERING    A    PRIMA    DONNA  245 

who  took  the  order  was  not  disappointed.  It  was  wine, 
and  as  he  uncorked  the  bottle,  full  of  a  sense  of  his 
own  importance,  one  of  them  asked,  casually : 

"Who  is  the  lady  who  was  singing  as  we  came  in  ?" 

"Little  Melba;  she's  there  with  de  goods,  all  right, 
ain't  she?" 

"Tell  her  to  come  over  here  and  have  a  drink." 

"Sure.  Ha,  Melba,  you're  wanted  over  here,"  he 
bawled,  and  smilingly  she  came. 

"Will  you  have  a  drink?"  asked  the  man  who  had 
sent  for  her. 

"Wine?"  she  queried,  "I'd  rather  have  a  glass  of 
beer,  if  it's  all  the  same  to  you,  for  I'm  thirsty  enough 
to  dring  a  keg.     Then  me  for  the  wine  afterward." 

After  her  drink  had  been  ordered  and  she  had  tossed 
it  off  with  the  air  of  one  who  is  well  used  to  it,  she 
remarked : 

"Now  I'll  hit  a  little  of  that  fizz,  if  you  don't  mind." 

"How  long  have  you  been  singing  here  ?" 

"Oh,  about  six  months.  It's  a  bum  job,  though.  The 
smoke  gets  in  my  throat.,, 

"What  songs  do  you  sing?" 

She  ran  over  a  list  that  took  in  all  the  popular  melo- 
dies of  the  day. 

"Here's  a  dollar,  get  up  and  sing  another  one — any- 
one will  do,  and  do  your  best." 

Dollars  for  singing  one  song  were  rare  for  her,  so 
she  obeyed  with  alacrity,  and  she  sang  as  best  she  knew. 

When  she  had  finished  she  came  back  to  where  they 
were  sitting  just  as  one  of  the  men  was  saying: 

"Why  don't  you  give  her  a  chance,  Jim?  You  can 
never  tell  how  these  kind  will  turn  out.  Remember 
Elmore  was  dug  up  out  of  just  such  a  joint  as  this." 


246  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Do  you  want  to  go  on  the  stage?"  asked  Jim, 
abruptly. 

"Do  I?"  and  she  unconsciously  straightened  up. 
"Why,  I'd  go  on  for  nothing,  just  to  show  them  I  could 
make  good.  Say,  I'd  work  for  my  board.  Can  you 
put  me  on?" 

"I  think  I  can,"  and  smiled  as  he  said  it. 

He  pulled  a  card  case  out  of  his  vest  pocket,  took  a 
card  from  it,  which  he  handed  to  her. 

"Come  see  me  to-morrow  afternoon  at  three  o'clock." 

She  looked  at  the  name  on  the  card  and  gasped  in 
astonishment,  for  it  was  that  of  one  of  the  best-known 
of  metropolitan  theatrical  managers,  whose  chief  claim 
to  fame  lay  in  the  many  successful  productions  of 
comic  opera. 

"Are  you  on  the  level  with  this  ?"  she  asked,  incredu- 
lously. 

"Come  around  to-morrow  and  see,"  he  answered. 

"Put  it  there,"  she  said,  excitedly,  as  she  held  out 
her  hand,  and  then  she  called  out  to  the  waiter  to  whom 
she  believed  she  owed  her  allegiance: 

"Billy,  Billy,  come  over  here." 

With  a  roll  and  a  swagger,  and  not  too  hurriedly, 
lest  he  lose  one  tithe  of  that  dignity  which  he  believed 
went  with  the  position  of  beer  slinger  in  one  of  the 
toughest  joints  in  New  York,  Billy  came,  scowling,  as 
if  he  already  scented  in  the  air  coming  interference 
with  his  plans  of  life. 

"See,  Billy,"  she  said,  laughing  like  a  little  girl  with 
the  joy  of  it  all.  "See,  this  is  the  great  theatre  man- 
ager, and  he's  going  to  give  me  a  show  to  see  what  I 
can  do.  I'm  going  on  the  stage,  Billy,  in  a  regular 
theatre,  and  sing  before  the  people.     Ain't  it  great?" 


DISCOVERING    A    PRIMA    DONNA  247 

She  was  like  a  child  in  her  enthusiasm. 

"Come  on,  let  me  blow  the  crowd ;  what  are  you  go- 
ing to  have,  boys?"  this  last  with  a  comprehensive 
sweep  of  the  hands.    "I'm  buying  now." 

Billy  stood  looking  down  on  her  with  a  scowl. 

"What's  all  dis?"  he  asked.  "What's  comin'  off  here, 
and  me  not  in  on  de  play?" 

Then  he  turned  to  the  manager. 

"What  are  yer  doing — givin'  me  gal  a  jolly,  ha? 
Well,  cut  it  out,  it  don't  go  here,  see?  Don't  let  'em 
string  yer,  Melba.  I  guess  de're  a  bunch  of  pretty  flip 
guys  wid  all  dere  glad  rags;  what?" 

"This  ain't  no  string,  Billy,  this  is  all  right,  ain't 
it,  Mister  ?"  and  she  appealed  to  the  man  who  had  been 
talking  to  her. 

"It's  all  right  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  was  the 
answer.  "You  do  as  I  say,  and  if  you  have  any  am- 
bition, I  guess  you'll  get  along  all  right." 

"Do  as  you  say?"  queried  the  waiter,  scornfully. 
"You  ain't  no  Pierpont  Morgan.  What's  de  matter 
wid  her  doin'  as  I  say  once  in  er  while.  Do  yer  t'ink 
I'm  a  dummy  wot  ain't  got  no  voice?  I  guess  nit.  Just 
cut  all  dis  funny  business  out  and  leave  my  gal  alone." 

"Take  it  easy,  Billy,  and  don't  get  excited.  This  is  a 
chance  for  me,  don't  you  see?  What's  the  good  of 
staying  here  and  losing  my  voice  for  a  dollar  a  night 
when  I  might  be  getting  big  money  in  the  theatre?" 

"Big  money  nothin',"  he  protested.  "Ain't  yer  on 
dat  it's  only  a  stall  ?  Dis  guy  is  stuck  on  yer,  dat's  it. 
He  wants  to  win  yer  away  from  me." 

The  three  wise  men  who  had  been  drinking  wine 
rose  to  their  feet  just  as  any  other  three  wise  men 
would  have  done  under  the  circumstances.    It  doesn't 


248  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

pay  to  get  mixed  up  with  a  waiter  in  a  tough  joint,  be- 
cause the  waiter  always  gets  the  best  of  it — that's  why 
he  is  a  waiter.  He  has  a  lot  to  do  besides  serving: 
drinks,  and  if  he  wasn't  handy  with  his  fists,  and  feet, 
too,  for  that  matter,  he  couldn't  hold  his  place  for  more 
than  a  night. 

As  they  started  for  the  door  the  girl  stood  up. 

"I'll  be  there  to-morrow,  all  right,"  she  called  out. 

"Over  my  dead  body  you  will,"  came  Billy's  voice. 

They  were  out  of  the  door  by  this  time,  too  late  to 
hear  the  sound  of  a  blow  and  too  late  to  see  the  girl 
drop  to  the  floor. 

They  don't  interfere  in  those  kind  of  family  rows  in 
the  Tenderloin,  or  in  the  Bowery,  either. 

It  isn't  healthy. 

It's  etiquette  to  mind  your  own  business  and  keep 
out  of  the  way.  And  so  nobody  paid  any  attention  to 
the  weeping  girl  and  the  swearing  blackguard.  But 
that  night  in  a  dingy  room  a  girl  cried  herself  to  sleep, 
and  between  her"  tears  made  up  her  mind  what  she 
would  do  on  the  morrow. 

She  did  what  she  had  planned  to  do,  and  twenty-four 
hours  later  the  tough  waiter  was  looking  for  another 
girl  to  take  her  place. 

Between  you  and  me,  that  happened  a  long  while 
ago,  as  we  count  time  in  New  York.  Since  then  she  has 
been  abroad,  to  the  Pacific  Coast  and  in  all  of  the 
large  American  cities.  Her  name  is  in  big  type  on 
the  posters,  and  she  is  referred  to  as  a  prima  donna. 

I  wonder  if  her  memory  ever  takes  her  back  to  the 
little  back  room  where  she  used  to  sing  songs  for  a 
dollar  a  night? 


A  THROW  OF  THE  DICE 

There  is  probably  no  street  in  the  world  that  has 
the  same  number  and  style  of  restaurants  as  Broadway, 
New  York,  especially  the  kind  that  are  within  the 
bounds  of  the  Tenderloin.  Chuck  Conners  would  call 
them  feed  joints ;  the  irreverent  might  refer  to  them 
as  hash  houses,  and  the  slangy  man  or  woman  who 
wanted  to  designate  them  might  be  pardoned  for  dub- 
bing them  lobster  palaces.  But  there  would  be  a  lot  of 
sense  and  reason  in  the  last  if  you  were  only  on,  or  took 
the  time  to  think  it  over. 

There  is  nothing  to  them  in  the  daytime,  and  the 
heavily  carpeted  floors  and  snowy-clad  tables  burdened 
with  silver  and  glass  are  practically  out  of  commission. 
There  are  a  few  waiters  on  duty,  but  no  one  ever  heard 
of  them  being  overworked,  even  with  the  rush  of  the 
merry-merry  after  a  matinee. 

These  money-makers  begin  to  rouse  up  a  bit  about 
the  time  the  average  man  of  business  affairs  is  finish- 
ing his  quiet  dinner  at  home,  but  the  time  to  go  there 
if  you  want  to  see  things,  and  by  things  I  mean  the 
sights  and  celebrities,  is  after  the  theatres  have  let 
out  the  evening  performance.  Then,  if  you  amount  to 
anything,  you  will  have  a  table  where  you  can  see  and 
be  seen,  and  you  will  feast  upon  a  bite  that  will  cost 
you  nothing  less  than  a  ten-dollar  bill,  not  including 
wine. 


It's  only  a  dream    after  the  lobster  course 


A  THROW  OF  THE  DICE  251 

The  shining  lights  of  this  world  are  in  a  class  by 
themselves,  and  include  the  bookmaker  with  a  loud 
voice — a  trifle  heavier  than  his  bank  roll ;  the  gambler, 
soft  of  hand  and  manner;  the  sport  who  has  done 
something  or  other  at  some  time  or  other  to  entitle  him 
to  a  passing  recognition ;  the  detective  sergeant,  who 
is  a  necessary  evil,  and  who  mixes  in  for  business  pur- 
poses of  his  own,  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  doing  the 
work  for  which  he  is  paid  by  the  city ;  then,  last  of  all, 
the  actor — star  or  semi-star. 

They  order  as  if  the  cooks  in  all  the  world  were 
working  for  them  alone,  and  the  waiters  were  em- 
ployed for  their  exclusive  benefit.  They  are  epicures 
and  gourmets  by  force  of  circumstances,  and  the  cir- 
cumstances are  a  roll  of  bank  bills  about  the  size  of  a 
man's  wrist.  Most  of  them  have  risen  to  a  mushroom- 
like affluence. 

The  money  came  quickly,  and  they  are  spending  it 
just  as  quickly. 

They  know  the  difference  in  wines  simply  because  of 
the  price,  and  they  order  that  which  sounds  the  best, 
so  for  that  reason  a  stream  of  the  juice  of  the  grape 
floods  a  bunch  of  uneducated  palates  and  floats  high- 
priced  food  that  would  kill  a  man  with  an  ordinary 
digestive  apparatus. 

Not  one  in  a  hundred  of  these  men  were  to  the 
manor  born;  their  lives  were  cast  in  stony  places  and 
what  they  are  they  made  themselves  by  sheer  force  of 
will,  or  else  they  accepted  the  golden  wreath  of  oppor- 
tunity and  knew  which  road  to  take  when  they  came 
to  the  forks. 

At  a  table  near  the  wall  is  a  man  who  twenty  years 
ago  was  a  bootblack  of  the  city's  streets. 


252  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

From  river  to  river  there  was  no  spot  on  which  he 
could  put  his  finger  and  say: 

"This  is  my  home." 

He  grew  up  like  a  blade  of  grass  sprouting  between 
stones,  and  he  fought  tooth  and  nail  for  his  life.  He 
knew  what  kicks  and  cuffs  were,  and  if  his  memory 
isn't  bad  he  knows  yet. 

He  blacked  the  boots  of  a  man  with  florid  face,  a 
heavy  gold  chain  across  his  vest,  and  a  mammoth 
stone  blazing  like  a  headlight  in  his  scarf,  and  because 
this  boy  was  bright  of  eye  and  keen  of  wit  his  cus- 
tomer, whose  business  was  politics,  took  a  fancy  to 
him.  Had  this  little  nomad  been  born  with  a  gold 
spoon  in  his  mouth  he  could  not  have  fared  better, 
nor  could  his  prospects  have  been  more  alluring,  for  a 
politician,  you  know,  is  a  man  who,  when  he  goes  to 
bed  at  night,  hangs  his  trousers  on  the  bedpost,  and 
when  he  wakes  up  in  the  morning  the  pockets  are  full 
of  money.  At  least,  that  is  my  idea,  and  if  I  am  wrong 
just  let  some  of  the  leading  politicians  of  to-day  contra- 
dict me,  and  tell  me  truly  how  they  got  theirs. 

While  this  man  is  eating  his  lobster  a  la  Newburg, 
and  sipping  the  wine  that  cost  him  $5  a  bottle,  I'll  go 
on  with  the  story. 

For  about  two  weeks  he  blacked  his  patron's  shoes, 
and  then  one  fateful  morning  the  man  with  the  bull 
neck  said  sharply : 

"Chuck  that  box  away,  son,  and  come  along  with 
me." 

He  didn't  wait  for  the  boy  to  take  the  cue  and  act  on 
it,  but  he  gave  the  box  a  kick  with  his  square-toed  boot 
that  sent  it  to  the  middle  of  the  street,  and  then  he  led 


A  THROW  OF  THE  DICE  253 

the  boy  to  a  clothing  shop  where  he  had  him  fitted  out 
with  everything  a  fellow  that  size  ought  to  have. 

He  saw  possibilities  in  this  youngster,  and  he  figured 
that  it  would  be  a  wise  move  to  have  some  one  as  close 
to  him  as  his  shirt,  and  upon  whom,  in  time  of  trouble, 
he  could  depend  with  absolute  certainty. 

A  good  bed,  good  food  three  times  a  day  and  money 
in  the  pocket  serves  often  to  make  a  marvelous  trans- 
formation, and  it  was  so  in  this  case,  and  the  erstwhile 
bootblack  forgot  in  a  moment  that  he  had  ever  shined 
shoes  or  performed  any  menial  services  for  any  human 
being.  He  was  swept  along  on  the  tide  of  prosperity 
with  his  patron  and  he  scoffed  at  poor  things  and  poor 
people,  as  might  have  been  expected.  He  was  aggres- 
sive to  everyone  except  his  source  of  income,  whom  he 
followed  and  fawned  upon  like  a  hound. 

The  work  he  did  was  criminal,  but  he  did  it  cheer- 
fully, even  though  a  hundred  could  have  sent  him  up 
the  river  with  a  word.  His  morals  were  as  flat  as  a 
desert,  and  he  grew  into  a  selfish,  egotistical,  arrogant, 
blatant  man  whose  friends  were  friends  by  force  of 
circumstances,  and  not  by  reasons  of  any  virtues  that 
he  possessed,  or  of  any  real  liking  they  had  for  him. 

In  the  course  of  time  the  big  man  with  the  neck  of  a 
gladiator  died,  and  was  buried  in  a  manner  fitting  his 
life.  A  ton  of  flowers  followed  him  to  the  six-foot  hole 
which  had  been  provided  for  him ;  a  few  bottles  of 
wine  were  drunk  by  his  cronies  to  drown  their  grief 
and  to  toast  his  successful  debut  into  that  new  and  un- 
known world  to  which  he  had  gone,  and  that  was  all. 

The  bootblack,  who  had  taken  himself  seriously,  and 
was  fond  of  calling  himself  a  gentleman  on  all  possible 
occasions,  for  no  other  reason  apparently  than  that  he 


254  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

wore  the  best  clothes  that  money  could  buy,  took  pos- 
session of  his  patron's  effects,  rifled  his  safe,  his  desk, 
and  appropriated  to  himself  everything  that  was  of 
the  slightest  value,  and  then  developed  into  a  short 
card  man. 

So  he  sits  there  to-night,  eating  lobster  and  talking 
to  a  woman  who,  between  you  and  me,  is  worth  look- 
ing at  more  than  once. 

By  an  old  and  familiar,  as  well  as  extremely  simple, 
process  she  had  taken  his  name.  It  was  a  trifling  mat- 
ter, settled  in  a  moment  over  a  small  bottle,  and  her 
only  speculation  was  as  to  whether  he  could  suitably 
provide  for  her. 

It  was  a  very  good  investment  for  him,  for  she  has 
proven  to  be  a  very  useful  little  lady  in  more  ways  than 
one.  She  knows  a  lot  of  real  nice  boys,  and  when  they 
get  very  sporty  she  tells  them  about  a  good  game  where 
good  fellows  may  be  found.  She  is  the  kind  of  a 
woman  who  would  make  a  sport  out  of  a  church 
deacon,  consequently  she  fits  very  snugly  into  the  life 
and  trade  of  our  friend  the  shoe-shiner. 

When  you  get  to  know  her  passing  well  she  will  tell 
you  how  she  was  educated  in  a  convent,  which  she  left 
to  visit  a  wealthy  aunt  in  Pittsburg.  While  there  she 
became  engaged  to  marry  a  rich  broker,  and  so  on, 
and  so  on,  you  know,  the  same  old  story.  The  stage 
figures  in  it,  too,  because  there  is  always  a  fascinat- 
ing glamor  about  the  other  side  of  the  footlights. 

She  has  been  in  comic  opera  and  she  has  a  lot  of  ex- 
pensive photographs  of  herself  in  theatrical  poses,  but 
no  matter  how  well  posted  you  may  be  you  fail  to  re- 
call her  name,  even  though  she  was  an  understudy  for 
Lillian  Russell,  "when  Lillian  was  good." 


A  THROW  OF  THE  DICE  255 

If  you  let  your  glance  rove  across  the  room  to  a 
table  close  by  one  of  the  central  pillars,  you  will  see 
another  type  of  woman,  and  this  one  is  worth  studying. 

She  will  never  see  her  fortieth  birthday  again,  al- 
though she  looks  about  thirty-two.  That  may  be  art, 
or  it  may  be  an  inherited  physical  characteristic,  but 
the  fact  remains  that  she  is  still  young  enough  and 
good  looking  enough   to  attract  a   man. 

She  is  a  veritable  star  and  her  singing  and  acting  are 
flawless. 

The  fine  old  gentleman  she  is  chatting  with  is  the 
head  of  a  very  ancient  and  very  distinguished  family 
of  New  York,  and  she  is  under  his  protecting  wing. 

That  is  a  remarkable  feature  of  her  career;  she  al- 
ways selects  with  painstaking  care,  nice  old  men,  with 
families. 

And  for  that  there  may  be  a  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
son. 

While  you  are  watching  her  and  noting  her  rather 
dainty  ways,  which  are  perhaps  a  bit  too  dainty  for  one 
of  her  age,  listen  to  the  little  story  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  about  her. 

Not  so  many  years  ago,  but  just  about  the  time  when 
she  was  in  the  zenith  of  her  career,  she  met  just  the 
same  kind  of  a  man  she  is  talking  with  now.  She  had 
had  a  great  deal  of  experience  with  old  men  and  she 
took  advantage  of  all  she  knew  to  make  him  like  her. 

She  succeeded — hence  this  story. 

The  old  fellow  was  all  right,  and  he  knew  what  was 
necessary  under  the  circumstances,  and  he  made  good 
with  characteristic  rapidity.  The  first  thing  he  did 
was  to  buy  her  a  handsome  brownstone  house  on  a 
quiet  side  street,  fill  it  full  of  handsome  furniture,  and 


256  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

then  he  blew  himself  in  for  a  neat  little  brougham  and 
pair  for  theatre   use. 

So  far,  so  good,  and  the  play  went  merrily  on. 

And  now  comes  a  spectacle,  or  a  melodrama,  or  even 
a  farce,  if  you  like. 

He  wasn't  her  constant  companion,  because  he  was 
clever  enough  to  realize  that  if  she  saw  too  much  of 
him  it  might  be  fatal  to  his  chances,  so  he  timed  his 
visits  with  careful  exactitude,  and  incidentally  show- 
ered her  with  gifts — which,  after  all,  is  one  of  the 
direct  roads  to  a  woman's  heart. 

But  he  made  the  fatal  mistake  one  day  of  introduc- 
ing to  her  one  of  his  old  friends,  and  from  that  mo- 
ment there  began  a  fierce  rivalry  between  them  for  the 
smiles  of  the  auburn-haired  actress ;  it  was  a  duel  with 
a  lock  of  hair  as  a  reward ;  a  combat  with  a  smile  for 
the  victor,  and  they  both  went  to  work  with  a  will 
and  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  object  in  life. 

When  one  bought  her  a  magnificent  solitaire,  she 
showed  it  to  the  other  and  he  promptly  laid  a  tiara  at 
her  feet,  and  it  was  unquestionably  the  greatest  battle 
of  senile  old  idiots  that  ever  raged. 

Separately  they  took  to  waylaying  her  on  the  street 
from  her  house  to  the  theatre,  and  back  again,  and  one 
even  went  so  far  as  to  buy  a  magnificent  yacht,  equip 
it  for  a  long  cruise,  and  attempt  to  kidnap  her.  But 
that  plan  failed,  and  it  was  just  as  well  that  it  did,  be- 
cause the  man  who  does  eccentric  stunts  of  that  charac- 
ter is  apt  to  find  himself  in  hot  water  sooner  or  later, 
and  in  any  event  reap  a  whirlwind  of  scorn  from  the 
lady  in  the  case. 

Finally,  the  climax  came,  as  it  was  bound  to  come, 
when  they  met  at  her  house  one  Sunday  afternoon. 


A  THROW  OF  THE  DICE  257 

All  this  may  be  new  to  you,  but  you  must  remember 
it  was  as  common  in  club  circles  as  the  Spanish  war, 
and  the  results  of  the  affair  were  watched  for  by  thou- 
sands of  men  whose  names  figure  conspicuously  in  the 
public    prints. 

They  met  and  they  quarreled,  and  when  my  lady 
appeared  on  the  scene  these  two  beaux  were  on  the 
verge  of  punching  each  other  in  good  old  Queensbury 
fashion. 

"Gentlemen,  gentlemen,  I  beg  that  you  will  not 
quarrel  in  my  house." 

You  will  notice  that  she  put  the  accent  on  the  word 
"my." 

At  once  there  were  criminations  and  recriminations, 
but  with  that  charm  of  manner  which  made  her  fam- 
ous, not  only  on  the  stage,  but  in  the  drawing  room, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  cafe,  she  poured  oil  on  the 
troubled  waters. 

"I  do  not  really  know  what  your  differences  are 
about,  but  if  you  will  allow  me,  I  would  like  to  suggest 
that  you  settle  them  in  some  amicable  way.  Here  are 
dice  and  a  cup,  why  not  play  for  it  ?" 

They  looked  at  each  other  for  a  moment,  and  then 
one  said : 

"Yes,  we  will  do  it,  madame,  just  the  thing.  Here,  I 
will  make  the  first  throw,"  and  out  upon  the  shining 
surface  of  the  golden  table  rolled  the  three  ivory  cubes. 

They  fought  it  out  while  she  looked  on  languidly, 
and  at  last  when  it  had  been  decided,  the  winner  arose 
exultingly  and  shouted: 

"I  have  won." 

"Won  what?"  she  queried,    curiously. 

"Won  what  ?    Why,  won  you." 


258  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"Won  me?"  and  she  placed  her  taper  finger  on  her 
breast.  "Why,  how  very  charming  that  is.  I  ought  to 
congratulate  you,  I  suppose,  and  I  shall  certainly  let 
you  know  when  I  come  back — if  you  are  still  alive." 

"You're  not  going  away?"  he  faltered.     "When?" 

"I  sail  to-morrow  morning  at  eight  o'clock ;  I  go 
aboard  this  afternoon.  I  am  going  to  Europe  for  a 
good  long  rest;  mother  says  I  need  it,  and  so  we  are 
going  together.  Good  afternoon.  Let  me  congratu- 
late you  on  being  so  lucky,  and  to  win  me,  too.  Why, 
it's  like  a  romance.  How  splendidly  that  would  stage." 

Down  the  street  the  two  old  fellows  walked,  one 
slightly  in  advance  of  the  other.  At  the  corner  the 
one  who  was  ahead,  hesitated  a  moment,  then  turned 
and  waited  for  the  other  to  come  up. 

"Tom,"  he  said.  "I  don't  know  what  you  think,  but 
I  am  of  the  opinion  that  we  are  a  pair  of  damned  old 
fools  who  ought  to  know  better.  Let's  go  and  have  a 
drink." 

The  old  gentleman  who  is  pouring  out  that  wine  for 
her  now  would  perhaps  like  to  hear  that  story  in  all  its 
wealth  of  detail,  but  even  if  he  knew  it  might  make 
no  difference. 

Of  all  the  thousands  of  people  who  go  to  restaurants 
there  are  only  a  few  who  do  not  go  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  eating.  We  have  been  here  an  hour  and  have 
looked  over  but  two  tables,  and  the  story  is  not  half 
told. 


A  VOICE  IN  THE  SLUMS 

This  is  one  of  the  "places"  of  New  York. 

It  is  not  worth  looking  at  in  the  daylight,  because 
there  is  nothing  to  see. 

It  is  gray,  dull,  dreary  and  desolate — too  dismal  to  be 
considered  for  even  a  moment. 

About  it  all  there  is  not  one  thing  that  is  attractive. 

It  is  downtown  and  on  the  East  Side,  and  that  is 
enough   to   tell  the   story. 

If  you  have  never  been  downtown  on  the  East  Side 
of  this  big  city,  go  and  take  a  look  some  time,  it  is 
worth  it,  and  you  may  see  some  things  there — as  I  have 
— that  will  interest  you. 

At  night  you  wouldn't  recognize  this  place  because 
of  the  softening  and  concealing  effect  of  the  electric 
lights. 

Besides  the  lights  there  is  music,  and  in  addition  to 
that  there  are  women — what  kind  of  women  you  can 
guess,  but  the  fact  remains  that  they  are  still  women, 
and  even  their  presence  helps  to  brighten  up  this  spot 
of  the  slums. 

Toughs  of  the  street  straggle  in  singly  and  by  twos, 
glancing  warily  about  for  prey,  or  in  search  of  girls  to 
whom  they  are  attached.  The  type  is  familiar  enough 
in  every  city.  Square-jawed,  low-browed,  with  shift- 
ing eyes  and  an  aggressive  manner ;  dressing  well  when 
the  money  comes  easy,  and  not  so  well  when  hard 
times  arrive ;  living  by  their  wits,  which  at  the  best  is 


She  figured  once  at  a  masked  ball  that  was  raided  by  the  police 


A     VOICE    IN    THE    SLUMS  261 

precarious,  relying  for  the  necessities  of  life  upon  a 
girl ;  spending  a  certain  portion  of  time  in  jail,  unless, 
as  it  often  happens,  they  are  too  cowardly  to  rob  a 
man,  but  not  too  cowardly  to  take  from  a  woman. 

Sightseers  drift  in,  too,  from  everywhere,  look 
curiously  about,  as  if  expecting  some  remarkable  and 
extraordinary  occurrence  at  any  moment,  and  failing 
in  that,  they  take  chairs  at  the  nearest  table,  and  give 
meek  orders  to  the  aggressive  waiter  for  liquors  which 
they  seem  afraid  to  drink. 

At  stated  intervals  someone  sings  a  song,  and  be- 
tween times  the  music  plays  a  waltz  for  those  who 
care  to  dance  on  the  bit  of  polished  floor  reserved  for 
that  purpose. 

The  very  dregs  of  high  life. 

It  is  the  lees  of  the  wine. 

Just  a  few  years  ago — so  short  a  time  that  it  seems 
almost  like  yesterday — a  young  woman  was  singing 
in  light  operas  and  doing  occasional  turns  in  vaude- 
ville. If  I  were  to  tell  you  her  name  now  it  would 
have  as  familiar  a  sound  to  you  as  the  name  of  any 
other  popular  performer. 

One  of  her  distinguishing  characteristics  was  her 
voice,  which  had  a  remarkable  and  extraordinary 
range. 

And  how  she  could  use  it. 

She  was  absolute  master  of  it,  and  there  was  no 
doubt  about  her  success,  nor  her  future,  either,  barring 
accidents,  of  course. 

Besides  that  she  was  good  to  look  at.  She  was  of  a 
distinctive  style  of  beauty,  and  she  had  a  fetching  way 
with  her  which  spelled  magnetism. 


262  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Magnetism,  between  you  and  me,  means  success  on 
the  stage — or  anywhere  else,  for  that  matter.  Take  the 
best  actor  or  actress  in  the  world,  one  who  is  perfect  in 
lines,  diction  and  stage  business;  who  is  absolute  mas- 
ter of  the  art  of  stage  craft,  and  rob  them  of  mag- 
netism, and  I  will  show  you  a  failure. 

So,  you  see,  this  young  woman  was  well  equipped 
for  the  business  she  was  in,  and  there  is  the  picture. 

Nicely  gowned,  looking  and  acting  like  a  thorough- 
bred, she  had  a  big  following  of  admirers,  and  there 
didn't  seem  to  be  anything  on  earth  within  reason  that 
she  wanted  she  couldn't  have. 

The  limit  of  her  vices  was  a  few  mild  drinking  bouts 
with  the  boys  and  the  occasional  smoking  of  a  cigar- 
ette, even  though  there  was  a  possibility  that  in  the 
years  to  come  the  tobacco  would  destroy  the  finer  tones 
of  her  voice. 

The  moral  end  of  the  business  was  her  own  affair, 
and  consequently  will  not  be  touched  on. 

Now  look. 

See  that  pallid  woman? 

The  one  who  has  just  come  in.  She  is  talking  to  a 
waiter  now.  Her  thin  face  is  seamed  with  lines,  and 
the  light  of  youth,  of  life  and  of  enthusiasm  has  gone 
out  of  her  eyes. 

You  wouldn't  think  she  was  once  a  beautiful  girl 
with  a  wonderful  voice,  would  you  ? 

"I  had  the  yin-yin  so  bad,"  she  is  saying,  "that  I  had 
to  go  in  and  hit  two  pills  before  I  came  out.  Now 
I'm  good  till  the  lights  go  out." 

One  night,  after  the  show,  she  went  with  a  party  on 
a  slumming  tour  through  Chinatown.  They  were  out 
to  have  a  good  time  and  nothing  more. 


A     VOICE    IN    THE    SLUMS  263 

In  one  of  the  resorts  in  which  they  stopped  was  a 
good-looking  young  bartender  who  caught  her  fancy. 
He  was  all  right  in  a  way,  but  she  outclassed  him  about 
twenty  to  one,  but  there  is  no  telling  what  a  woman  is 
going  to  do,  or  upon  whom  she  is  going  to  bestow  her 
favors,  any  more  than  one  can  tell  what  the  state  of 
the  weather  will  be  a  month  or  two  months  from 
now. 

She  thought  she  was  in  love  with  him — but  she 
wasn't.  She  had  only  taken  a  fancy  to  him,  which  was 
a  different  sort  of  a  proposition,  but  she  didn't  know  it 
at  that  time. 

She  went  on  singing  just  the  same,  but  the  time  she 
was  out  of  the  theatre  she  spent  with  him,  and  the 
more  money  she  earned  the  better  he  dressed. 

She  dipped  a  little  deeper  into  the  different  vices, 
until  at  last  she  went  up  against  the  king  of  them  all 
— opium. 

With  all  of  her  drinking  and  cigarette  smoking  she 
was  still  able  to  hold  her  own  and  keep  her  voice  in 
some  kind  of  shape,  and  many  a  rare  old  song  has  she 
trilled  in  some  cheap  dive,  and  made  the  old-timers 
straighten  up  in  their  seats  and  tell  her  she  was  all 
right.  Previous  to  that  she  had  figured  in  only  one 
escapade  and  that  was  when  she  was  caught  in  a  raid 
at  a  masked  ball  which  was  so  off-color  and  made  up  of 
many  desperate  characters — men  and  women — that  it 
took  a  platoon  of  police  with  drawn  clubs  to  bring  the 
affair  to  a  sudden  end. 

They  will  never  forget  the  night  when  she  went 
down  to  the  "Drum"  in  James  street,  and  after  setting 
up  the  drinks  for  the  crowd,  stood  in  the  centre  of  the 


264  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

grimy  floor  and  without  a  note  of  accompanying  music 
sang  Annie  Laurie. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  verse,  a  drunk  crept  on  his 
hands  and  knees  from  a  dark  corner  where  he  had 
been  lying,  and  staggering  to  his  feet,  looked  at  her 
dully  with  bloodshot  eyes,  and  then  cursed  her  so  vio- 
lently that  she  instinctively  shrank  back  for  a  mo- 
ment. 

But  she  had  been  drinking,  too,  and  was  equal  to  the 
emergency. 

"Shut  up,"  she  retorted.  "I'm  going  to  sing  the 
whole  damned  song  or  break  a  rib  trying,"  and  with 
that  she  started  on  the  second  verse. 

Sitting  on  a  chair,  holding  his  head  in  his  hands,  the 
man  began  to  sob  and  cry  as  only  a  man  whose  heart 
is  aching  can,  and  then,  as  if  he  could  stand  it  no  long- 
er, he  rushed  madly  from  the  place  while  she  laughed. 

"I  can  make  them  all  quit  if  they  will  stay  long 
enough." 

Almost  a  year  later  that  same  man,  but  dressed  and 
washed  and  respectable,  came  downtown  one  night, 
and  went  through  all  the  places  upon  whose  floors  he 
had  fallen  and  slept  many  a  night,  looking  for  the  girl 
who  had  sung  that  song. 

He  found  her  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  the 
Bowery. 

She  was  sitting  at  a  table  in  McGurk's  with  two  men 
with  whom  she  had  been  drinking  cheap  whiskey  for 
hours. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  man,  "but  are  you  the 
young  woman  who  sang  a  song  in  a  place  on  James 
street  about  a  year  ago — Annie  Laurie  it  was?" 


A    VOICE    IN    THE    SLUMS  2t5 

"I  may  have,  old  pal,  I've  sung  a  lot  of  songs  in  my 
day." 

"Well,  you  will  probably  be  glad  to  know  that  that 
song  was  the  turning  point  in  my  life,  and  I  am  now  a 
reformed  man.  I  feel  that  I  owe  it  to  you,  and  I  want 
to  give  you  some  little  memento  that  you  can  keep." 

As  he  spoke  he  pulled  a  package  out  of  his  pocket 
and  handed  it  to  her.     With  unsteady  fingers  she  un- 
wrapped it  and  when  she  had  opened  the  case  she  saw 
a  gold  watch  upon  which  was  engraved : 
To  the  singer  who  saved  my  life. 

"You're  a  good  old  sport,  all  right,  let's  have  a  drink 
on  it." 

"No,  thank  you,"  he  said,  hurriedly.  "I  must  be  go- 
ing now,  but  I  want  to  tell  you  that  you  have  a  great 
gift  which  you  are  throwing  away." 

"So  long,  old  pal,  live  while  you  can,  for  you'll  be  a 
long  time  dead,"  she  said,  and  he  was  gone. 

She  looked  at  the  watch  curiously  for  a  moment, 
and  then  called  one  of  the  waiters. 

"Ha,  Jimmy,  here's  a  swell  watch.  Ask  the  old  man 
how  much  he  will  give  me  for  it — it  looks  to  be  worth 
about  fifty." 

The  waiter  returned  in  a  few  minutes  and  said: 

"He  says  he'll  give  you  ten." 

"All  right,  he's  on,  get  the  coin." 

She  stayed  until  she  had  spent  the  money,  and  then 
she  went  reeling  home. 

True?     Of  course  it's  true,  every  word  of  it. 

But  she's  not  drinking  so  hard  now,  opium  is  her 
god,  and  she  spends  most  of  her  time  with  her  pipe 
and  her  lamp.  Her  downward  course  has  been  a  very 
rapid  one,  and  her  name  has  almost  been  forgotten. 


266  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

The  man  at  the  next  table  is  whispering  to  his 
friends : 

"She  was  the  greatest  singer  I  ever  heard,  and  many 
a  time  I've  gone  to  the  same  show  three  times  in  one 
week  just  to  hear  her,  and  when  a  woman's  voice  gets 
rue  like  that  you  can  bet  it's  got  to  be  good." 

"Get  her  to  sing  now ;  I'd  like  to  hear  her." 

"Sing  now  ?  Why,  she  couldn't  sound  a  note  if  her 
life  depended  on  it.  She's  got  all  she  can  do  to  talk 
plain.  She  looks  like  a  piece  of  leather,  doesn't  she? 
Yet  she  made  the  prettiest  picture  on  the  stage  I  ever 
saw." 

Her  voice  interrupted  here. 

It  was  harsh  and  strident  in  tone — there  was  little  of 
the  woman  in  it. 

"Well,  if  you  won't  buy  me  a  drink  I'll  buy  one  for 
myself;  give  me  a  whiskey,  Jack,  and  don't  be  all 
night  about  it,  either." 

"Why  don't  you  get  that  Chinky  of  yours  to  buy  you 
a  drink?"  remarks  some  one  from  the  other  side  of 
the  room. 

"Why  don't  you  mind  your  own  business?  He'd 
buy  me  all  the  drinks  I  wanted  if  I  would  ask  him,  and 
that's  more  than  you  would  do.  If  anybody  asks  you 
just  tell  them  that  the  Chinks  are  all  right,  see,  and 
don't  be  so  new." 

"Cut  that  out,  you  fresh  guy  over  there,  cut  it  out." 

Here's  a  champion  for  her ;  there  are  a  few  left  who 
are  still  under  her  spell,  or  who,  remembering  what 
she  once  was  and  knowing  her  in  her  palmy  days,  stick 
for  old  time's  sake. 

"Have  a  drink  on  me,  old  pal,  and  go  as  far  as  you 
like." 


A     VOICE    IN    THE    SLUMS  267 

She  comes  back  with  a  laugh ;  and  if  you  look  closely 
— if  you  have  those  kind  of  eyes  that  can  see  things 
below  the  surface,  so  to  speak — you  will  see  that  she 
doesn't  really  belong  here,  and  never  did.  That  she  is 
here  because  of  some  unfortunate  series  of  circum- 
stances over  which,  perhaps,  she  had  no  control.  You 
will  see  something  in  her  manner  that  distinguishes 
her  from  the  rest  of  the  women,  even  those  who  are 
better  looking  and  better  dressed.  It  is  that  intangible, 
indefinite  something  which  means  blood,  or  previous 
environment.  It  cannot  be  put  on  and  taken  off  like  a 
garment,  and  when  once  there  it  is  there  to  stay. 

That  makes  the  wreck  all  the  more  pitiable,  and  with 
the  same  eyes  through  which  you  have  just  looked  you 
will  see  the  finish. 

It  isn't  pleasant  to  look  at,  and  now,  while  the  music 
is  playing  for  the  waltz,  and  the  couples  are  getting  on 
the  floor  to  go  through  that  interminable  routine  of 
steps  called  dancing,  while  the  painted  women  are 
laughing,  and  the  men  are  calling  them  pet — or  other 
— names,  we  will  go  out  of  this  room  to  where  we  can 
breathe  a  fresher  air  and  see  the  stars. 

I'm  not  sentimental,  but  there  are  some  things  I 
don't  like  to  see,  besides,  I  knew  the  girl  when  she  was 
at  her  best,  and  I  have  heard  her  sing  when  she 
brought  the  house  down  with  applause. 


Once  she  had  been  on  ,the  stage,  but  she  got  a  rough  deal  and  quit 


A  GIRL  OF  THE  NIQHT 

The  band  on  the  platform  at  the  end  of  the  big  hall 
was  booming  out  the  popular  melodies  of  the  day  for 
dear  li^e  and  the  piercing  notes  produced  by  the 
leather-lunged  piccolo  player  were  heard  as  far  as  the 
street. 

'That  guy  up  there  has  me  deaf  with  that  flute  he's 
blowing,"  remarked  Big  Lizzie,  "and  while  I  don't 
wish  him  any  harm  yet  I  hope  he  chokes." 

"That  knocks  this  place,"  remarked  her  pal.  "Why, 
I  had  a  John  in  here  the  other  day  and  he  was  wanting 
to  buy  me  a  new  dress,  and  I  thought  he  was  wanting 
to  know  where  I  lived,  and  I  was  writing  my  name 
and  number  down  on  a  piece  of  paper  and  he  got  dis- 
gusted and  went  away.  It  drives  'em  out,  if  you  want 
to  know  what  I  think." 

But  it  was  once  a  famous  old  place  when  Fourteenth 
street  was  really  good,  and  the  casual  visitor  to  New 
York  who  didn't  drop  in  for  an  hour  or  so  missed 
something. 

It  was  one  of  the  sights,  and  the  great  mechanical 
organ  invented  and  built  by  a  straight-laced  Methodist 
is  there  still,  although  he  has  long  ago  ceased  calling 
the  attention  of  his  friends  to  the  fact.  Its  tunes  to- 
day are  sandwiched  in  with  those  of  the  band,  and  in 
the  interval  the  trombone  player  gets  a  chance  to  re- 
cover his  breath. 


270  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Morning,  noon  and  night  men  and  women  wander 
in,  sit  at  the  little  round  tables,  drink  queer  decoctions 
made  of  liquor  strong  enough  to  eat  into  Harveyized 
steel,  and  then  go  forth  to  tear  up  the  town.  The  police 
pass  it  by  as  though  it  were  nothing  more  serious  than 
an  ice  cream  parlor  or  a  peanut  emporium,  while  the 
tide  of  upholstered  and  hand-painted  mademoiselles 
sweep  in  on  the  flood  and  drift  out  on  the  ebb  with 
business  written  in  every  line  of  their  faces. 

Their  paths  radiate  like  the  sticks  of  a  fan  from  this 
rendezvous  of  the  social  evil,  and  in  their  movements 
they  show  nearly  all  the  characteristics  of  the  honey- 
gathering  bee. 

The  engaging  and  winsome  smile  of  a  girl  not  yet 
out  of  her  teens  had  caught  the  eye  of  the  man  in  this 
story,  and  against  his  will  he  had  allowed  her  to  lead 
him  into  this  place  where  mirth  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  mask  behind  which  a  skeleton  face  grinned, 
and  where  neither  laughter  nor  anything  else  was  sin- 
cere. Her  black  eyes  had  not  yet  taken  on  that  hard- 
ness which  the  years  to  come  would  surely  add  to  them, 
and  her  ways  were  to  a  certain  extent  ingenuous.  Be- 
sides, she  was  distinctly  pretty  with  her  Yiddish  style 
of  beauty,  which  was  unfortunately  of  the  kind  which 
matures  at  sixteen  and  is  old  at  twenty-five.  Either 
teaching  or  a  subtle  instinct  had  caused  her  to  discard 
the  gorgeous  plumes  and  brilliant  colors  which  had 
marked  her  debut  on  the  street  less  than  a  year  before, 
and  in  consequence  she  might  have  passed  for  anything 
but  what  she  was. 

She  had  been  on  the  stage  once  on  a  tour,  but  got  a 
rough  deal  and  quit. 


A    GIRL    OF    THE    NIGHT  271 

He  outclassed  her  by  a  hundred  to  one,  and  his 
source  was  as  high  as  hers  was  low.  There  was  no 
tinge  of  peasantry  in  his  veins,  but  good  successful 
American  stock  traceable  back  for  five  or  six  genera- 
tions without  a  blot  upon  escutcheon — which,  by  the 
way,  is  rather  rare  in  these  days,  consequently  it's 
worth  boasting  about.  Lured  into  the  maelstrom  of 
music,  he  found  himself  at  one  of  the  tables  with  the 
girl  beside  him,  still  smiling. 

Liquor  has  different  effects  on  different  men;  it 
turns  the  mild  man  into  a  savage  and  makes  a  careful 
one  reckless  in  the  extreme.  In  this  particular  case 
caution  went  to  the  four  wrinds  and  sympathy — which 
is  apt  to  be  dangerous  at  times — took  its  place.  But 
let  youth  and  inexperience  excuse  him. 

"You  haven't  told  me  your  name,"  he  said.  "What 
is  it?" 

"Brown,"  she  answered,  "Jennie  Brown." 

"I  mean  your  right  name." 

"Well,  Jennie  is  my  right  name — I  took  the  other 
one  after  I  came  out  of  the  hospital.  Some  day,  maybe, 
I'll  get  married  and  then  I'll  change  it  again,  but  not 
before." 

"What  did  you  go  to  the  hospital  for — were  you  ill 
and  did  you  have  no  one  to  take  care  of  you?" 

"111?  You  mean  sick?  No,  I  wasn't  sick;  I  was 
stabbed,  and  I  got  it  good,  too.  I  was  cut  from  here  to 
here,"  and  her  right  forefinger  described  across  the 
front  of  her  dress  a  line  that  went  from  her  shoulder 
to  the  center  of  her  breast  bone.  "At  first  I  thought  I 
was  going  to  croak  because  I  lost  a  lot  of  blood,  but  I'm 
pretty  strong  and  I  came  out  all  right.  You  see,  it  was 
this  way:     A  guy  I   knew  got  stuck  on  me  and   I 


272  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

couldn't  shake  him,  and  he  followed  me  around  like 
a  shadow.  I  didn't  like  him  because  he  wasn't  in 
my  class,  and  besides  he  had  another  girl  and  I  never 
took  a  girl's  fellow  away  in  my  life.  If  they  split  up 
then  that's  different,  but  as  long  as  they're  together 
I  keep  out  of  it.  Every  time  I'd  talk  to  anybody  or 
go  anywhere  he'd  be  there.  One  night  he  followed 
me  and  a  fellow  I  had  that  wanted  to  buy  wine  into 
Sharkey's  and  when  he  tried  to  start  a  fight  with  my 
friend  one  of  the  waiters  threw  him  out.  Of  course  that 
made  him  sore,  and  he  said  that  he'd  get  even.  He 
did,  all  right,  for  one  night  as  I  was  going  upstairs  he 
was  in  the  top  hall  waiting  for  me,  and  the  first  thing 
I  knew  he  had  the  knife  into  me. 

"  'If  you  won't  have  me,  take  this,'  he  said,  and  then 
I  felt  an  awful  pain  and  when  I  put  my  hand  up  the 
blood  was  coming  through  my  dress. 

"  'You  killed  me,  Jimmy/  I  said,  'and  I  never  done 
anything  to  you.'  But  there  wasn't  any  answer  to 
that,  for  he  was  running  down  the  stairs  as  fast  as  he 
could. 

"I  was  afraid  to  go  up  to  my  room  all  alone  with  the 
blood  running  out  all  over  me  so  I  went  down  to  the 
street  to  look  for  my  pal,  Annie.  You  don't  know  her 
but  she's  all  right.  It  was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning 
and  there  was  no  one  around  so  I  thought  I'd  walk 
over  to  Third  avenue  and  see  if  I  could  find  any  of  the 
girls  there  and  get  help.  There  was  an  electric  light 
up  on  the  corner  and  I  hadn't  taken  more  than  a  few 
steps  before  it  began  to  move  up  and  down  and  I  got 
afraid  and  began  to  run.  When  I  got  up  to  the  avenue 
all  the  lights  were  going  up  and  down  as  if  they  were 


A    GIRL    OF    THE    NIGHT  273 

crazy  and  a  man  on  the  other  side  of  the  street  looked 
as  if  he  was  upside  down. 

"Then  I  began  to  get  frightened  and  I  thought  to 
myself  that  I'd  sit  down  on  a  doorstep  for  a  minute 
till  I  got  over  that  queer  feeling  and  that  maybe  Annie 
would  come  along.  So  I  picked  the  first  one  I  saw  and 
flopped  down.  When  I  looked  up  it  made  me  dizzy 
and  so  I  looked  down  at  the  stone,  and  as  I  leaned  over 
I  watched  the  little  red  drops  fallings  one  after  the 
other,  and  always  hitting  the  same  spot,  and  then  they 
began  to  spread  out  and  the  pool  almost  reached  the 
sole  of  my  shoe.  I  was  wondering  how  long  it  would 
take  before  my  foot  got  wet  from  it,  and  where  it  all 
came  from,  anyhow.  It  all  seemed  very  funny  to  me; 
then  I  felt  tired  and  shut  my  eyes. 

"The  next  thing  I  knew  I  was  in  bed  and  there  was  a 
nurse  there.  A  cop  was  there,  too,  and  when  I  looked 
at  him  he  says,  'Ha,  nurse,  she's  out  of  it.' 

"  'What  place  is  this  ?'  I  asked. 

"  'You're  in  Bellevue  Hospital,'  he  said,  and  he  was 
right.  I  had  been  there  two  days  before  I  knew  it. 
What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

"You  were  unconscious,"  remarked  the  young  man. 

"Sure  I  was  unconscious,"  she  responded,  "and  they 
asked  me  all  kinds  of  questions,  who  did  it  and  all  that, 
and " 

"And  did  you  tell  them  who  it  was  that  stabbed 
you?" 

"Did  I  tell  them?  Nix;  not  on  your  life.  I  never 
rapped  on  anybody  and  I  wasn't  going  to  rap  on  him, 
for  it  wouldn't  do  me  any  good  and  it  wouldn't  take 
that  stab  away,  would  it  ?  I  thought  I'd  get  square  my- 
self some  day  when  I  got  out  of. the  hospital  and  was 


274  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

strong  again.  That's  the  only  way.  Him  going  up  the 
river  for  a  couple  of  years  wouldn't  have  done  me  any 
good,  and  maybe  he'd  have  croaked  me  when  he  came 
out.  What's  the  good  of  taking  chances  ?  So  I  hocked 
all  my  rings  and  other  stuff,  and  got  togged  up  when  I 
came  out.  I'll  get  them  all  out  in  a  month,  maybe  be- 
fore. I  got  one  now ;  see,"  and  she  held  up  a  finger  on 
which  was  a  very  big  turquoise,  surrounded  by  very 
small  diamonds.  'Til  get  them  one  at  a  time,  and 
then  if  I  ever  get  up  against  it  again  I've  got  them  to 
fall  back  on.  It's  just  as  good  as  money,  only  the  in- 
terest is  awful.  Now  if  I  only  had  a  good  friend  who 
would " 

"Want  the  waiter  ?"  broke  in  a  hoarse  voice  like  the 
croak  of  a  mammoth  raven. 

"Give  me  a  claret  lemonade,  Harry." 

"And  what'll  the  gent  have?" 

"A  Martini  cocktail." 

"Right  you  are." 

"As  I  was  saving,  if  I  only  had  a  friend  who  would 
be  on  the  level  I'd  be  square  with  him,  too.  I  ain't  got 
no  pals,  only  Annie,  and  she's  been  pretty  good  to  me. 
Say,  you  ain't  married,  are  you?" 

"No,  not  yet";  he  laughed  nervously  as  he  said  it. 
"I  don't  believe  in  fellows  getting  married  until  they're 
twenty-five,  anyhow." 

"Neither  do  I." 

He  noticed  that  her  teeth  were  very  white  and  even, 
and  that  her  eyebrows  and  hair  were  jet  black.  The 
color  on  her  cheeks  had  been  put  there  with  a  skilled 
hand,  and  so  deftly  done  that  it  passed  for  the  real 
thing — in  nature,  not  in  art.  Her  hands  were  shapely, 
her  nails  manicured  carefully  and  she  had  a  trim  fig- 


A    GIRL    OF    THE    NIGHT  275 

ure.  It  was  all  stock  in  trade,  but  he  wasn't  figuring 
it  that  way.  Half  a  dozen  of  the  kind  of  drinks  they 
had  given  him  had  torn  down  the  barrier,  so  far  as  he 
was  concerned,  that  had  been  raised  by  society  be- 
tween it  and  the  Scarlet  Woman,  and  the  pathos  of  her 
story  had  set  him  thinking  and  had  roused  all  of  his 
sympathies.  She  had  played  her  part  with  all  of  the 
subtleness  of  the  finished  actress  and  had  told  her  story 
with  such  simplicity  and  naivette  that  many  an  older 
man  would  have  been  deceived  by  the  recital.  She  was 
working  up  to  the  climax  as  carefully  and  cautiously 
as  the  hunter  works  up  into  the  wind  after  the  unsus- 
pecting deer,  or  the  soft-footed  cat  ambushes  the  bird 
singing  in  the  hedge.  The  emotional  breed  of  her  race 
helped  to  make  her  realistic,  and  her  vivacity  was  con- 
tagious. Put  her  on  the  stage  and  she  would  be  a  suc- 
cess with  proper  training. 

"If,"  she  laid  her  hand  caressingly  on  the  sleeve  of 
his  coat,  "if  I  could  find  someone  who  would  get  my 
rings  out  and  give  me  a  chance  I  would  be  willing  to  do 
anything  for  him.  I  don't  like  this  life,  always  hus- 
tling, chased  by  the  police  and  treated  like  a  thief.  But 
once  in  it's  hard  to  get  out,  for  no  one  wants  to  give 
you  a  chance." 

He  was  looking  over  her  head  and  watching  the 
man  with  the  cornet  rubbing  up  the  brass  with  his 
handkerchief. 

"You  are  not  listening  to  me." 

"Yes,  I  am ;  I  heard  every  word  you  said.  How 
much  would  it  cost  to  get  your  jewels  out?" 

"Only  $125.  It  might  not  be  much  for  you,  but  it's 
a  lot  for  me." 


276  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

Here  was  the  climax,  so  far  as  her  story  was  con- 
cerned. She  could  have  repeated  those  three  figures 
long  before,  but  she  wasn't  ready.  She  was  waiting  for 
the  psychological  moment  and  it  had  arrived.  The 
picture  was  made  and  the  hand  was  ready. 

And  now  your  attention  is  respectfully  called  to 
Fate,  the  intruder ;  the  upsetter  of  carefully  laid  plans ; 
the  wrecker;  sometimes  the  promoter,  because  it  does 
as  many  things  for  good  as  it  does  for  bad.  In  this 
case,  however,  it  was  good  and  bad,  according  to  the 
viewpoint. 

"If  you  wouldn't  mind  I'll  get  them  out  for  you. 
Let's  go  now,"  he  said. 

She  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and  smiled  at  him — a 
smile  of  happiness  and  success ;  the  smile  of  a  child 
when  it  gets  its  first  Christmas  doll ;  and  then  she  drew 
a  deep  breath.  Still  smiling,  her  eyes  half  closed,  she 
looked  at  him  through  the  narrow  slits  and  contem- 
plated the  possibilities  of  the  future.  There  was  no 
hurry  and  she  could  afford  to  wait,  for  she  had  won 
out. 

A  woman,  coarse  of  feature  and  with  fright  depicted 
on  her  face,  came  hurrying  in.  She  saw  the  girl  at 
one  end  of  the  room  and  ran  to  her. 

"Jennie,  for  God's  sake,  come  quick;  your  Billy's 
just  been  pinched  on  the  corner." 

"Billy  pinched;  what  for?"  The  jubilation  in  her 
black  eyes  turned  to  terror. 

"For  swiping  a  bloke's  leather.  They  got  it  on  him ; 
hurry  up." 

The  boy  stared  wide-eyed  at  them  for  a  moment, 
then  pushing  his  chair  back  he  arose  unsteadily  to  his 
feet. 


A    GIRL    OF    THE    NIGHT  277 

"Seventy-five  cents  for  the  drinks." 

It  was  the  waiter's  voice. 

He  fumbled  in  his  pocket,  brought  forth  a  handful  of 
change,  deposited  it  in  the  outstretched  palm,  and  be- 
gan to  weave  his  way  among  the  tables  toward  the 
door  in  the  wake  of  the  hurrying  women. 

"He's  a  swell  kid,  all  right,"  remarked  the  waiter, 
as  he  counted  the  $3.25  in  change,  "and  I  hope  he 
comes  back." 


When  the  clock  struck  two  she  was  on  the  table  doing  a  dance 


AFTER  THE  WEDDING  BELLS 

There  was  a  big  crowd  on  the  ferryboat  from  Jer- 
sey when  she  bumped  her  nose  into  the  pier  at  New 
York  that  morning,  but  when  the  gates  were  thrown 
open  there  wasn't  the  usual  scurry  and  rush  to  land 
that  marked  the  morning  arrival.  At  the  front,  hug- 
ging the  rail  on  the  woman's  side  was  a  nice  little 
blonde  dressed  all  in  white,  even  down  to  her  shoes  and 
stockings,  and  with  a  complexion  of  the  kind  known  as 
peachy,  if  you  have  any  idea  what  that  is.  Fastened 
to  her  with  a  strong  arm  hold  was  a  fellow  of  about 
twenty-three — years,  not  skiddoo,  you  understand — 
and  he  was  togged  out  like  a  hot  sport  after  a  win- 
ning fight,  or  one  who  had  picked  the  20  to  1  shot 
at  Sheepshead  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  Top  hat, 
frock  coat,  white  vest,  patent  leather  shoes,  pearl  tie 
and  gray  gloves  completed  the  picture,  and  it  was  the 
surest  case  of  orange  blossoms  and  wedding  cake  that 
ever  happened. 

That  was  what  held  the  crowd  and  made  a  few  of 
them  whistle  what  sounded  very  much  like  that  old 
familiar  tune  of  "Here  Comes  the  Bride." 

Arm  in  arm,  entirely  oblivious  of  anything  in  the 
world  except  themselves  and  their  own  happiness,  the 
couple  marched  off  the  boat,  heads  up  in  the  air  and 
trailed  by  the  grinning  bunch,  and  if  ever  a  case  of 
love's  young  dream  went  around .  on  legs  this  was 
surely  it. 


280  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

They  knew  as  much  about  New  York  as  a  Shrews- 
bury River  clam  knows  about  cigarettes,  and  it  didn't 
require  the  services  of  a  head-grabber  or  a  hand-holder 
to  know  that  they  were  hunting  a  honeymoon  hostelry. 

They  had  come  from  the  fertile  fields  of  Freehold  to 
the  land  where  there  are  real  bathtubs  with  hot  and 
cold  water,  and  where  a  chunk  of  plain  calf  is  soused 
with  gravy,  called  fricandeau  of  veal,  and  charged  for 
at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  portion. 

What  was  money  made  for  except  to  spend,  espe- 
cially on  occasions  of  this  kind?  You're  young  but 
once,  and  then  a  little  makes  you  feel  like  a  millionaire 
and  you  get  value  received  and  five  times  over  for 
every  dollar  you  peel  off  the  roll.  But  when  Time,  who 
is  the  most  wonderful  artist  in  the  world,  does  a  few 
stunts,  makes  brown  hair  turn  gray  and  deftly  paints 
in  the  wrinkles,  then  the  joy  of  spending  goes  and 
pleasure  becomes  as  soggy  as  a  wet  sponge.  Years  are 
the  frosts  which  kill  the  flowers  of  hope  and  ambition, 
and  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  would  give  mil- 
lions of  dollars  if  they  could  but  stand  off,  if  only  for 
a  brief  while,  the  gray-haired  patriarch  with  the  scythe. 

Just  think  of  the  sight  of  a  young  bride  and  groom 
holding  in  leash,  as  it  were,  a  couple  of  hundred  busi- 
ness men  who  were  as  anxious  to  get  on  the  job  of 
making  money  as  a  dog  is  to  get  a  bone,  and  all  of 
these  hard-headed  fellows  smiling  as  if  each  one  of 
them  were  in  the  same  position  as  the  young  fellow 
who  was  fast  to  her  arm. 

Up  the  street  to  Broadway,  where  they  turned 
north,  and  then  they  were  lost  to  all  but  two  men,  and 
these  two  were  trailing. 


AFTER    THE    WEDDING    BELLS  281 

Begins  to  sound  like  one  of  Old  Sleuth's  detective 
stories,  doesn't  it?  Where  the  villains  are  always  on 
the  job  and  always  being  foiled.  Where  it  is  either  a 
case  of  murder  the  child  and  get  the  papers  or  kidnap 
the  girl  and  marry  her  so  as  to  get  the  old  man's  for- 
tune. Doesn't  that  take  you  back  a  few  years  when 
you  used  to  have  those  yellow-covered  books  in  your 
inside  pocket  and  believe  every  word  you  read,  or  are 
you  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  never  lived  the  life  of 
a  real  boy,  with  all  its  castle  building  and  romancing? 
You  know  there  are  men  in  this  world  who  still  dream 
of  those  days,  and  it  doesn't  do  them  any  harm,  either. 

The  two  men  who  were  brought  into  this  story  a 
moment  ago  are  still  in  the  game,  but  they  are  neither 
burglars  nor  kidnappers.  They  are  simply  a  pair  of 
good  fellows  with  enough  money  on  the  side  to  get 
anything  within  reason,  and  a  belief  that  there  are 
happy  days  and  good  people  in  this  world  if  you  only 
take  the  trouble  to  look  for  them. 

"I'll  bet,"  said  one,  "that  that  kid  hasn't  more  than 
a  hundred  in  his  clothes,  and  that  he  feels  as  if  the 
world  was  his  to  do  with  as  he  likes." 

"The  world  is  his  if  he  has  as  much  as  a  hundred," 
returned  the  other.  "That  will  give  him  the  time  of 
his  life  for  three  weeks,  and  he  wouldn't  go  back 
broke,  either,  unless  his  home  is  in  London,  which 
it  isn't." 

"She's  a  nice-looking  girl  all  right,  and  from  the 
way  they're  heading  I  should  say  it  would  be  Niagara 
for  theirs." 

"Niagara  nothing,"  retorted  his  friend,  "that  is  a 
spot  that  belongs  to  the  past.  Our  mothers  and  fathers 
made  it  fashionable,  but  the  present  generation  takes 


282  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

to  big  cities  as  naturally  as  a  duck  takes  to  water,  for 
they  want  the  busy  life  and  the  theatres.  The  billing 
and  cooing  of  the  newly  wed  is  all  done  under  cover 
now  and  they  mix  with  the  crowd.  You'll  find  them 
taking  in  the  big  cafes  along  The  Line  getting  a  good 
look  at  things  they  never  expect  to  see  again,  and  these 
are  the  things  they  will  be  talking  about  twenty  or 
thirty  years  from  now.  Make  a  picture  of  that  couple 
ahead  there  in  1926,  for  instance.  He'll  be  telling  his 
friends  about  this  day,  and  the  night  they  went  to  see 
Joe  Weber,  and  he'll  tell  how  the  buildings  first  im- 
pressed him,  and  then  she'll  butt  in  with : 

"  'Say,  Henry,  what  was  the  name  of  the  restaurant 
in  New  York  we  went  to  after  we  saw  that  funny 
show — you  know,  the  place  where  we  had  that  lobster 
a  la  Newburg?' 

"As  long  as  she  lives  she'll  talk  about  lobster  a  la 
Newburg  because  it  sounds  different,  you  see,  and 
that's  the  woman  of  it. 

"Then  Henry  will  stroke  his  whiskers  and  take  his 
corncob  pipe  out  of  his  mouth  and  say,  as  if  he  had 
known  the  place  all  his  life,  'Why,  that  was  Shan- 
ley's.'  " 

"Cut  it  out,  for  you're  talking  like  one  of  Denman 
Thompson's  home-made  rural  drammers,"  put  in  his 
friend,  as  he  pulled  out  his  cigar  case.  "You're  always 
looking  for  the  unusual  and  the  sentimental,  so  I'll 
make  you  a  proposition.  Let's  get  next  to  this  pair  of 
turtle  doves  and  give  them  the  send-off  of  their  lives. 
We'll  start  off  with  a  lunch,  then  a  matinee,  after  that 
dinner,  from  there  to  a  show  and  then  a  windup  in  a 
blaze  of  glory  with  wine  and  all  the  trimmings  of  a 
wedding  feast.    You've  nothing  to  do,  neither  have  I, 


AFTER     THE     WEDDING    BELLS  283 

and  maybe  if  we  do  the  thing  up  right  she'll  name  it — 
if  it  is  a  boy — after  one  of  us  or  both  of  us,  just  think 
of  that.     There's  fame  for  you." 

That  is  how  it  happened  that  an  hour  later  a  newly- 
married  young  couple,  under  the  escort  of  two  young 
men  who  were  pretty  well  known  around  town,  were 
lunching  at  the  Waldorf  just  as  if  they  had  known 
each  other  for  years. 

"You  see,"  one  of  the  hosts  was  explaining,  "we  had 
an  invitation  to  a  wedding  out  of  town  to-day  and  we 
missed  the  train.  We  felt  as  if  we  wanted  to  entertain 
some  one  in  honor  of  the  event  and  we  thought  we 
would  ask  you.  We  want  you  to  be  our  guests  from 
now  until   1  o'clock  to-morrow  morning " 

The  young  husband  glanced  uneasily  at  his  wife  and 
she  smiled  back  reassuringly. 

The  woman,  with  that  unerring  female  instinct 
which  is  born  with  all  females  of  the  human  tribe,  un- 
derstood the  situation  at  a  glance  and  was  ready  for 
the  lark.  Besides,  both  hosts  were  good  looking  and 
well  dressed  and  her  vanity  was  touched.  She  was 
young  enough  to  be  natural  and  old  enough  to  be  ap- 
preciative. Besides,  there  were  a  few  healthy  drops  of 
sporting  blood  in  her  veins,  and  that  tells  a  good  part 
of  the  story. 

There  are  cases  where  details  are  uninteresting,  and 
while  the  time  from  luncheon  to  near  the  hour  of  mid- 
night seemed  to  the  honeymooners  one  wild  carouse 
yet  it  was  really  nothing  to  those  who  are  familiar  with 
the  ways  of  the  world.  They  had  sampled  everything 
within  reason  from  soda  to  hock,  and  the  happy  Free- 
hold boy  with  the  silk  lid  was  willing  to  walk  on  his 
hands  if  anvone  had  dared  him.     He  had  told  everv- 


284  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

one  he  met  all  he  knew  and  all  fie  ever  expected  to 
know.  As  for  the  little  lady  who  had  been  toasted 
many  times  as  the  "blushing  bride,"  she  had  suddenly 
developed  sporting  proclivities  of  a  rare  character,  and 
she  squeezed  the  hands  of  both  of  her  hosts  with  equal 
impartiality. 

Confidentially  it  was  rather  a  dangerous  situation, 
for  if  the  bridegroom  had  been  helped  to  a  few  more 
drinks  he  wouldn't  have  cared  whether  the  place  where 
he  was  laid  away  was  a  bridal  couch  or  the  soft  side  of 
a  board.  That  was  the  state  of  affairs  when,  calling 
each  other  by  their  first  names,  so  friendly  had  they  be- 
come, that  they  all  went  up  to  the  apartment  of  one  of 
the  hosts  for  the  wind-up  banquet. 

"How  are  you  feeling,  little  sport,  getting  a  head 
yet  ?" 

"I'm  just  right,  and  I'd  like  to  have  you  for  a 
brother,"  she  retorted. 

"Only  a  brother?" 

"Perhaps  I  should  have  said  father." 

Which  showed  that  she  had  a  pretty  wit,  too,  as  well 
as  a  head. 

At  the  table  the  hosts  had  multiplied  by  two  and  so 
there  were  six.  The  first  flash  of  cocktails  set  the 
groom's  head  to  buzzing  a  bit  and  his  speech  began  to 
be  a  trifle  thick.  At  the  sauterne  he  had  a  job  to  keep 
his  head  up  straight,  and  he  had  no  sooner  finished  his 
first  glass  of  wine  than  he  excused  himself  to  get  a 
handkerchief.  He  dropped  on  a  friendly  couch  in  the 
next  room  and  promptly  forgot  that  he  was  alive.  His 
wife  was  no  such  miserable  failure,  for  she  clinked 
glasses  with  the  rest  of  them  and  was  entertained  so 


AFTER    THE    WEDDING    BELLS  285 

well  that  it  seemed  as  if  she  forgot  she  had  ever  been 
married. 

As  the  clock  on  the  mantel  struck  two  she  was  danc- 
ing a  hornpipe  on  that  end  of  the  table  which  had  been 
cleared  by  the  soft-footed  Japanese  butler,  and  what 
was  more  she  was  dancing  it  well,  too.  The  four  hosts 
were  applauding  and  drinking  her  health  as  the  best 
little  thoroughbred  they  had  ever  met,  and  in  each 
brain  there  was  a  wish  that  she  was  anything  but  a 
bride,  for  each  of  these  men,  from  the  oldest  to  the 
youngest,  was  in  love. 

It  was  a  most  curious  and  remarkable  state  of  affairs, 
and  there  was  a  chance  here  for  a  break  tfiat  might 
spell  ruin  to  someone.  Then  the  patter  of  the  little 
feet  on  the  tablecloth  ceased  and  she  stepped  daintily 
down  to  chair  and  floor.  The  man  nearest  helped  her, 
and  as  she  alighted  he  leaned  over  and  kissed  her 
squarely  on  the  lips.  The  color  in  her  cheeks  was  ac- 
centuated just  a  trifle  as  he  glanced  suddenly  around. 

"Where's  my  husband?"  she  asked. 

"With  his  toes  turned  up  on  the  couch  in  the  next 
room  and  dead  to  the  world.  If  he  was  half  the  sport 
and  good  fellow  you  are  he'd  be  an  ace.  You  ought  to 
have  been  born  in  New  York,  Chappie,  for  you  belong 
there." 

"I  think  I  will  go  and  see  him,  if  you  will  excuse 
me,"  she  said  very  demurely,  and  then  she  went  out. 

The  four  hosts  drank  and  talked  and  smoked  and  all 
the  talk  was  of  the  bride,  and  it  was  at!  complimentary, 
too.  When  an  hour  had  passed  the  butler  was  sent  to 
see  if  she  would  return. 

She  came  back  all  right,  smiling,  but  there  was  a 
change. 


286  SKETCHES    OF    GOTHAM 

"I  think  we  ought  to  go  now,  but  I  can't  get  him  up. 
He's  not  used  to  this  sort  of  thing,  you  see,  and  I  don't 
know  what  I'm  going  to  do/' 

"Why,  stay  right  here,  of  course.  We're  all  going 
now  and  Jim,  the  gorilla  who  owns  the  place,  is  going, 
too.  The  shack  is  yours  until  you  get  ready  to  leave, 
for  you're  all  right.     How  about  that,  Jim?" 

"Just  as  you  say — she  owns  it  and  us,  too.  Give 
your  orders  to  Saki  there,  and  we'll  call  and  take  din- 
ner with  you  every  evening.  We  hope  the  boy  will  be 
all  right  in  the  morning.     Good-night." 

That's  all. 

It  seems  as  if  there  ought  to  be  more,  but  there 
really  isn't. 

With  one  large  high  absinthe  I  could  make  a  hair- 
raising  finish,  but  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  tell  only 
the  truth  for  a  change  and  give  my  imagination  a 
much  needed  rest,  and  this  is  a  truthful  story  and  it 
happened  just  as  it  is  put  down  here. 


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